SPRINKLING, 



THE 



ONLY MODE OF BAPTISM 

MADE KNOWN IN THE SCRIPTURES; 

AND 

THE SCRIPTURE WARRANT 

FOR 

INFANT BAPTISM. 

BY 

ABSALOM PETERS, D. D„ 



NEW YORK: 
UBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
59 Chamber Street, 

1857, 



-PA'S' 



\* 



5^ 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1848, 

BY ABSALOM PETERS, 

in the ClerV* Office for the District of Massachusetts, 



«Mf Ttxeol. SaflP* 



$ 

DEDICATION. 



U i 



%f To the First and Second Congregationa. 
hurches in Williamstown and to the Faculty and 
£ iudents of Williams College — the very gene- 
ra i expression of whose favorable opinion of the 
substance of the following treatise, as recently 
presented in the pulpits of these churches, has 
induced him to prepare it for publication — this 
littU volume is most affectionately and respect- 
fully dedicated, with every feeling of interest, 
and 1 1 Christian fellowship, 

By their Friend and Servant, 
In the Ministry of the Gospel, 

A. PETERS, 
Wilk&mstown, Mass,, June, 1848. 



A WORD TO THE READER. 



In preparing this work, it has been my object to 
furnish a book adapted to be read and understood by 
our church members generally ; at once so small, that 
any one may afford to purchase it — so brief, as not 
to be wearisome — and so arranged as to present the 
subjects discussed, in their proper order, and with 
clearness, to the mind of the reader. It is designed 
as a candid, direct and intelligible exposition of the 
Scripture Doctrine of Christian Baptism, in respect to 
its nature, mode and subjects. 

Such a work may appear to some to have been un- 
called for. Scores of books and pamphlets have 
been published, on Baptism, some of them of great 
ability ; and much learning has been expended on the 
subject. But the controversy respecting the mode of 
baptism has been thrown into no little confusion by 
false issues hi argument, and by a range of learned 
discussion, often, the tendency of which has been to 
bewilder the inquirer after truth, while the confidence 
with which immersionists are accustomed to claim the 



VI WORD TO THE READER. 

express sanction of scripture, has led many to doubt, 
whether, after all, the Baptists may not be the nearest 
right, if they would only give up their close com- 
munion. 

It seemed important, therefore, to disembarrass the 
simple teachings of the Bible from the incumbering 
arguments which have been so generally urged in its 
aid, and to arm the common mind in our churches 
for the defence of the scriptural mode of baptism, 
practiced by all Protestants, excepting a single deno- 
mination. We have accordingly made the Bible its 
own interpreter. 

The arguments adduced in this treatise are almost 
wholly scriptural and didactic, with as little to do with 
controversy, as the nature of the subject and a proper 
defence of the truth has seemed to allow. 

Similar principles have been adopted in the argu- 
ment for Infant Baptism. 

Should this undertaking meet the favor which it 
humbly craves, and serve to strengthen the faith of 
such as already adopt substantially the positions here 
defended — confirm the wavering, convince the doubt- 
ing, or guide the honest inquirer to the truth, on the 
much controverted subjects here discussed — it will 
fulfil the hopes and answer the prayers of 

THE AUTHOR. 



A COMMENDATORY RESOLUTION. 



While preparing for publication, I took occasion to 
present the argument contained hi Part L, at a meet- 
ing of the " Berkshire Association," who have kindly 
furnished the following expression of favor, viz : 

" The Rev. Dr. Peters preached the Associational 
Sermon, from Matt. 28 : 19, and after criticism, the 
following preamble and resolution were unanimously 
passed : 

" The Association having listened with great inter 
est to the argument of Dr. Peters on the Mode of 
Baptism, and deeming his views original and impor- 
tant, and a 'short method' of settling this question; 
therefore 

" Resolved, That Dr. Peters be requested to publish 
his views on this subject, in such form as he shall 
judge best. 

" A true copy from the minutes, 

"Attest, J. JAY DANA, Scribe." 

Sessions of the Berkshire Association, ) 
Great Bamngion, June 6, 1848: £ 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

SPRINKLING THE ONLY MODE OF BAPTISM MADE 
KNOWN IN THE SCRIPTURES. 

SECTION L 

General remarks on the institution of baptism, as 
a Christian Sacrament, and the controversy re- 
specting it, ------ 13 

SECTION n. 

The controversy stated — Meaning of baptizo, as 
used to designate the Christian ordinance of 
baptism — The Greek plow, 20 

SECTION ffl. 

Scripture illustrations of the meaning of the word 
baptism, independent of the mode of its ad- 
ministration, and of sprinkling, as the only 
mode of baptism made known in the Bible, 36 



X CONTENTS. 

SECTION IV. 

The nature and design of John's baptism, and of 
the baptism of our Saviour by John, 51 

SECTION V. 

All the questions on the mode of baptism re- 
duced to one — The water applied to the per- 
son, and not the person to the water, - 59 

SECTION VI. 

The mode of John's baptism, - - 68 

SECTION vn. 

Prophecies intimating the mode of Christian bap- 
tism — The baptism of the Spirit, 78 

SECTION VIE. 

Historical illustrations of the mode of baptism, 
as it was administered by the apostles — The 
Greek particles translated into and out of, - 84 

1. The baptism of three thousand on the day of 
Pentecost, ----- 84 

2. The baptism of the Eunuch and of Christ, 89 

SECTION IX. 

Historical illustrations of the mode of baptism, 

as administered by the apostles — Continued, 99 

3. The baptism of the apostle Paul, 99 

4. The baptism of Cornelius and his friends, 99 



CONTENTS. X) 

5. The baptism of Lydia and her household, 101 

6. The case of the jailer and his family, - 102 

7. Two other instances, - - - 105 

SECTION X. 

Recapitulation — Figurative expressions concern- 
ing baptism — Conclusion of the argument, 107 

SECTION XL 

Origin of the mode of baptism by immersion — 
The Bible does not make the mode essential, 
yet important — A concession — The great error 
of the Baptists, - - - - - 1 14 



PART II. 

THE SCRIPTURE WARRANT FOR INFANT BAPTISM. 

SECTION I. 

The meaning of our Saviour's command, (Matt. 
28: 19,) in respect to the subjects of baptism — 
Proselyte baptism, ----- 131 

section n. 

In all the covenants of God with men, children 
are included with their parents. - - 140 



Xll CONTENTS* 

SECTION in. 

The Church the isame under the Jewish and 
Christian dispensations, - - - - 144 

SECTION IV. 

Baptism the substitute for circumcision, - 149 

SECTION V. 

The example and practice of the apostles in re- 
spect to Infant Baptism, - 162 

SECTION VI 

Testimony of early Christians, and of histoiy — 
Origin of the Baptist denomination— Conclud- 
ing remarks, - - * - / * * 168 



PART I. 

SPRINKLING THE ONLY MODE OF BAPTISM 
MADE KNOWN IN THE SCRIPTURES.* 



SECTION I. 

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE INSTITUTION OF BAPTISM^ 
AS A CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT, AND THE CONTRO- 
VERSY RESPECTING IT. 

The last command of our Saviour to his 
disciples was addressed to them, after his re- 

* I use the word sprinkling, in preference to asper* 
§ion, affusion, or pouring, because it is a more familiar 
word, in common parlance, and is used in scripture, 
to express the mode of baptism, as it is generally 
practised. It is also a better translation of the Greek 
word pavn£w (fantizo) in the Septuagint, and as used 
by the Apostle (Heb. 9 : 13) in reference to the " di- 
vers washings" {baptisms) prescribed under the law. 
I wish it to be understood, however, that I mean by 
this word any application of water to the subject of 
baptism, in larger or smaller quantities, according to 
the original signification of rantizo, which is to pour 
all over ; to wet ; to besprinkle. 



14 BAPTISM 

surrection, when having finished his personal 
ministry on earth, he was about to ascend his 
throne. The occasion was solemn and memo- 
rable. " Then the eleven disciples went away 
into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had 
appointed them. And when they saw him, they 
worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus 
came and spake unto them, saying, Jill 'power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth ; Go ye 
therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them 

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND 

of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I have commanded you; 
and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world." (Mat. 28: 16-20.) This com- 
mand is recorded by another Evangelist in dif- 
ferent words: "And he said unto them, Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature. He that believeth and is baptized, 
shall be saved ; but he that believeth not, 
shall be damned." (Mark 16: 15, 16.) 

These passages contain the only recorded in- 
stitution of Christian baptism. The disciples, it 
is true, had before this baptized. But there is 
no proof that they had done so in the form which 



INSTITUTED. 15 

is here prescribed, and no evidence that the 
Saviour had before required baptism to be per- 
formed in the use of these words. In his last 
command, therefore, as recorded in the above 
passages, is contained the whole of our direct 
authority, from Christ himself, for the adminis- 
tration of this ordinance. Here Christian bap- 
tism was instituted. This is our only Divine 
warrant to baptize " in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

This command, to baptize, no doubt, has a de- 
finite meaning — a meaning which was under- 
stood by those to w T hom it was primarily' ad- 
dressed, and which ought to be understood by 
us. And yet it is expressed in the fewest words 
possible. It is accompanied with no commen- 
tary, no explanation of the words. It means, 
just what the words meant, then and there. And 
the very brevity of the expressions, and the inci- 
dental manner, in which the duty is inculcated 
in the command, indicate that there must have 
been, present to the minds of the apostles, cir- 
cumstances and considerations w 7 hich rendered 
the words perfectly intelligible to them. They 
accordingly received the command, asking no 



16 BAPTISM 

explanations/ and went forth in obedience to it, 
and administered baptism to their disciples. 

It should also be remarked, that the adminis- 
tration of this ordinance, in the time of the 
apostles, being a matter of visible practice, the 
mode of it was of course seen and understood 
by those who received it. It seems indeed to 
have been understood alike by the primitive 
disciples. Hence we hear of no dispute or divi- 
sion among them concerning it. They either 
agreed in a particular mode, w T hich they under- 
stood to be embraced in the meaning of the com- 
mand, or they regarded the spirit of the institu- 
tion as alone essential, and felt at liberty to vary 
the mode to meet circumstances and occasions. 
Accordingly there was no need of any explana- 
tion, to them, of the mode of the ordinance. The 
visible practice of the thing, which they called 
baptism, explained itself, in this respect. 

But there have come dark ages over the church 
and the world. Scarcely had the apostles been 
laid in their graves, when a fancy began to pre- 
vail, that there was a cleansing power in water 
baptism. The strange notion of "baptismal 
regeneration " was early imbibed by professing 



INSTITUTED. 17 

Christians, and a mode of baptism was no doubt 
adopted, to imply and perpetuate that idea. 
Forms and ceremonies were soon introduced 
from heathen worship, and monstrous abuses 
were practised, which continue to the present 
day, both in the Romish and Greek churches. 
The spirit of the institution w r as buried and lost 
under the accumulation of its borrowed accom- 
paniments. The leaders of the Protestant Re- 
formation, therefore, have found it necessary to 
go back to the Bible, to recover the original 
meaning of this and other ordinances of the 
gospel. 

For reasons, however, which I have already 
intimated, the import of the Saviour's brief com- 
'mand on this subject, is not so readily appre- 
hended by us as by the primitive disciples. The 
single word fiairr^u), {baptizo,} which defines 
the ordinance, is not, with us, vernacular, and 
we are far removed from the usages of those, 
times in our personal experience. We labor, 
therefore, under some disadvantages in our en- 
deavors to ascertain the precise truth, as to the 
original mode of this ordinance. Yet the insti- 
tution, in its primitive purity, is deemed so im- 
2 



18 BAPTISM 

portant, that learning and ignorance, simple 
piety and sectarian zeal have all been deeply 
and perseveringly engaged in its investigation. 

The sad result is a controversy, wide-spread 
among evangelical Christians, as to the mode in 
which we are required to fulfil this last command 
of our Saviour. And what is still more sad, 
principles have been adopted by some parties, 
which have divided the church, and broken her 
visible communion. 

In such a state of things, if there be any key 
to the discovery of the root of this evil, any 
principle which may promise to restore the body 
of the faithful to its primitive unity, surely every 
conscientious Christian will rejoice to find it. 
At least every one rightly affected on this sub- 
ject, will see to it, that he is not himself, through 
ignorance of the Saviour's command, a schis- 
matic, or an occasion of divisions among the 
people of God. 

In what mode, then, did the apostles under- 
stand that they were to obey the command of 
Christ, to baptize? To answer this question 
satisfactorily, we must place ourselves, as far as 
possible, in their circumstances, and look out 



INSTITUTED 19 

upon the truths and usages, which must have 
controlled their perception of the meaning of 
the words and things embraced in this command. 



SECTION II. 

THE CONTROVERSY STATED — MEANING OF THE wt)RD 
Batri?u (baptizo,) AND ITS DERIVATIVES, AS 
USED TO DESIGNATE THE CHRISTIAN ORDINANCE 
OF BAPTISM. 

Our Baptist brethren maintain strenuously 
that the primary classical meaning of the word 
/3cmiti£w (baptizo,) is to immerse or dip, and 
that this meaning of the word and its deriva- 
tives, used to designate the ordinance of baptism, 
must control the mode of its administration. 
On this ground, principally, they contend that 
immersion, and nothing else is baptism.* I say, 

* The proportion of the Christian world, who prac- 
tice immersion or submersion, is very small. Of the 
sixty or seventy millions of Protestants of all denomi- 
nations in the world, probably not a fiftieth part 
have been baptized in this way. Dr. Kurtz, of the 
Lutheran Church, says, " probably not one-sixtieth part 
practice submersion." All the rest administer bap- 
tism by aspersion or sprinkling. 

T mention this fact rather as a matter of information, 



MEANING OF BAPTIZO. 21 

on this ground principally, because, though many 
other topics of argument are put forth in their 
writings, I think it will be made apparent, in 

than as an argument ; and since our Baptist brethren 
sometimes claim the practice of the Greek church in 
favor of then mode of baptism, it may be proper here to 
remark, that the Greek church maintain that trine im- 
mersion — plunging three times — is absolutely neces- 
sary. After these immersions, they sprinkle the sub- 
ject with w r ater. They cannot be claimed, therefore, 
as the exclusive supporters of either mode, while the 
Roman Catholic church, whose example is quite as 
worthy of imitation, practice only sprinkling, so far as 
water is used. But these are both idolatrous churches, 
whose practices have no authority with us. 

I may add, that even among Protestants, who prac- 
tice immersion, the "Tunkers" — Dippers, usually called 
Dunkards — insist on an entire triple immersion, by a 
forward motion of the body, while Alexander Camp- 
bell, the leader of the Campbellites, a somewhat nu- 
merous sect in our Western States, judges this mode 
to be nugatory, inasmuch as it does not, in his opinion, 
resemble the burial of Christ. "We must dip," he 
says, " only once, and the motion must be backwards" 
But while these conflicting opinions exist among the 
advocates of immersion, there is no dispute among 
those who practice sprinkling, as to the precise mode 
of its performance. — See Kurtz on Baptism, p. 158, fyc. 



22 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

the course of our discussion, that they are of little 
weight in comparison with this. This is regard- 
ed as the main point by our Baptist brethren 
themselves. It is, indeed, the only ground, on 
which I can conceive that a candid scholar 
w T ould be willing to take the exclusive position 
assumed by the " close communion Baptists." 

But the argument, on this ground, in favor of 
immersion, derives all its strength from a mis- 
taken assumption that it is in point, when, in 
fact it has little or nothing to do with the sub- 
ject. Learned men, on the Baptist side of this 
controversy, may have thus been led, by their 
familiarity with the Greek classics, to take up a 
false issue to which they have applied their philo- 
logy, in a manner very satisfactory to themselves,- 
while prejudiced men have felt it incumbent on 
them so to interpret the scripture expressions 
relating to baptism, as to make them conform 
to the imperious demands of this philological 
argument. But this argument, as I have said — 
and will now proceed to show — has little or no- 
thing to do with the subject. 

The question in dispute can never be settled by 
proving the meaning of the word /3oMrri£aj, 



MEANING OF BAPTIZO. 23 

(baptizo) in ancient heathen Greek, though it is 
easy to show, and has been abundantly proved 
by our best philologists, that the argument is not 
wholly with the Baptists, even on that score. 
The word means to tinge, to dye, to smear, &c, 
as well as to immerse. The Editor of Calmet's 
Dictionary quotes some eighty examples, taken 
in part from the ancient fathers and classical 
writers, but mostly from the Bible, in every one 
of which the word in question implies less than 
submersion, and in most of them, no more than 
sprinkling, moistening, pouring, or staining. 
But I leave that argument as wholly irrelevant 
to the precise point of difference between us and 
our Baptist brethren. 

The true question is: what was, and is, the 
meaning of the word baptizo, as used in the New r 
Testament, to designate the religious ordinance 
of baptism? Suppose we admit — as we do not — 
all that the Baptists claim, as to the meaning of 
baptizo, or (3oL<irn(f pog (baptism) in heathen Greek. 
If it meant there immersion, and nothing else, 
still that could not govern its meaning as used 
by Christ and his apostles to designate an action 



24 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

which was utterly unknown to the Greeks of all 
preceding ages. 

Let it be remembered that the Greek lan- 
guage had never been used to express any of the 
ideas of revealed religion, until the Jews w T ere 
conquered by the Greeks some three hundred 
years before Christ* Until after that time the 
idea of a religious ordinance, or ceremony, call- 
ed baptism, had never entered the mind of a 
Greek. The Greek language was as destitute 
of any such ide£, as was the language of the 
Sandwich Islanders before they were instructed 
by our missionaries. All the ideas of the lan- 
guage, relating to religion, were heathen ideas. 
Hence the whole system of the gospel was " to 
the Greeks foolishness." ( 1 Cor. 1 : 23.) But the 
Jews, who had before this spoken the Hebrew 
language, and had the Old Testament scriptures 
in the Hebrew — which was understood by no 
other nation — being now in subjection to the 
Greeks, found it necessary to learn the Greek 

# The Jews submitted to the dominion of the 
Greeks under Alexander the Great, who died in the 
year 323 before Christ. After this the intercourse ol 
the Jews with the Greeks was necessarily intimate, 



MEANING OF BAPTIZO. 25 

language. And before the birth of the Saviour, 
they translated their own scriptures into Greek.* 
But in expressing the truths of revealed religion 
in their new language, they were obliged to give 
to many of its words a new meaning. 

The w r ord flrvsu/xa (pneuma, spirit) for instance,, 
in the most ancient Greek, meant wind, or breath, 
and nothing further. But in adapting this word 
to express the ideas of revealed religion, the 
sacred writers use it to signify spirit, as the spirit 
of man, and the Spirit of God. % 

# The translation here referred to is that known as 
the Septuagint, which Josephus and others say, was 
made under the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who 
died 247 years before Christ ; and it is generally ad- 
mitted that that translation existed before our Saviour's 
time, and is quoted by him. It is conceded also that 
the Greek language was generally spoken in Pales- 
tine in the time of Christ, though the Hebrew was also 
in use among all the Jews. (See Hug's art on " The 
Greek Language in Palestine' 1 Bib. Repos. 1831, p. 530, 
fyc.) The Latin language was also now spoken in Pales- 
tine ; for before this time — 146 years B. C. — the Ro- 
mans had conquered both the Greeks and Hebrews. 
Hence the superscription on the cross of Christ was 
written " in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew," 1 
that all the people might understand it.-— (Luke 23 : 38* ) 



26 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

The word ayysXog (angelos, angel,') in heather 
Greek, signified simply a messenger, a person by 
whom news is conveyed ; and the idea of a spirit- 
ual messenger from God, called angelos, was 
unknown to the Greek language. But the sacred 
writers appropriate this word almost exclusively 
to the expression of this idea. It means, in the 
Bible, what it did not mean in ancient Greek, a 
spiritual messenger and servant of God. 

The Baptists, then, if they would be consistent 
w T ith themselves, in claiming a literal translation 
of baptizo, according to its heathen or secular 
meaning, must do the same in respect to the 
words pneuma and angelos. But if they do this, 
they must read the passage, John 3:5, " Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and of the wind, 
[the Spirit] he can not enter into the kingdom 
of God;' 5 and, John 3:6, " That which is born 
of the wind is wind !" And they must make the 
sacred waiter declare, Acts 23 : 8, that the 
Saducees say, " there is no resurrection, neither 
messenger nor wind!" The same absurdity 
would occur from the carrying out of this prin- 
ciple in respect to many other Greek words, used 



NAMES AND THINGS. 27 

in the New Testament, to express the peculiar 
ideas of revealed religion.* 

So Christ and his apostles, who were of Jew- 
ish lineage, and were familiar with all religious 
ideas, as expressed in the Hebrew language of 
their own scriptures, when they applied the word 
baptizo to express a religious ordinance, gave to 
the word a new shade of meaning, conformed to 
the thing which it was now intended to express. 
But the idea of this thing had never entered the 
mind of a heathen Greek, and until now had 

# Let it be observed, we do not affirm that the New 
Testament writers always use the words above refer- 
red to in their religious sense. When they speak of 
ordinary things in the Greek language, they give to 
its words the meanings which they had in common 
use, before they were appropriated to the expression 
of religious ideas. So our Saviour, in the same con- 
versation in which he used pneuma to signify spirit, 
made use of the same word in its primitive sense 
(John 3 : 8,) " The wind" (pneuma) " bloweth where 
it listeth." The word baptizo is also often used in 
Scripture in its primitive sense. The principle which 
we assert is, that it always has a peculiar meaning 
unknown to the ancient Greeks, when used to express 
the rite of baptism. 



28 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

been unknown to the Greek language. It is 
preposterous, therefore, to determine the precise 
mode of this ordinance from the primary or pre- 
vious meaning of the Greek word used to express 
it. The meaning of an old word, when it is used 
as the name of a new tiling, must conform to the 
thing, and not the thing to the name. 

" No principle is more universally admitted by 
all sound philologists, than that to establish the 
original and primitive meaning of a word, is not 
at all decisive in respect to its subsequent usage. 
It often aids only as giving a clue, by which to 
trace the progress of the imagination, or the 
association of ideas in leading the mind from 
meaning to meaning, on some ground of relative 
similitude, or connexion of cause and effect. So 
the verb, to spnng, denotes an act, and gives 
rise to a noun denoting an act. A perception 
of similitude transfers the word to the issuing of 
water from a fountain, to the motion of a watch- 
spring, and to the springing of plants in the 
spring of the year. Yet who does not feel, that 
to be able to trace such a process of thought, is 
far from proving that, when a man in one case 
says, I made a spring over the ditch, in another, 



THE LATTER GREEK. 29 

I broke the spring of my watch, in another, I 
drank from a spring, and in another, I prefer 
spring to winter, he means in each case the same 
thing by the word spring ? And who, in using 
these words, always resorts to the original idea 
of the verb?" (Pres. Beecher in Bib. Repos. 
1841.) 

"It is true," says Campbell (Prelim. Dis. I., 
Part 2,) " that as the New Testament is written 
in Greek, it must be of consequence that we be 
able to enter critically into the ordinary import 
of the words of that tongue." " But from what 
has been observed, it is evident, that though in 
several cases this knowledge may be eminently 
useful, it will not suffice ; nay, in many cases, 
it will be of little or no significancy." " Clas- 
sical use, both in Greek and in Latin, is not only, 
in this study, sometimes unavailable, but may 
often mislead. The sacred use and the classical 
are often very different." 

In the Biblical Repository, for April, 1841 3 
Professor Robinson says, " The language of the 
New Testament is the latter Greek, as spoken by 
foreigners of the Hebrew stock, and applied by 
them to subjects on which it had never been sw<- 



30 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

'ployed by native Greeks. After the disuse of 
the ancient Hebrew in Palestine, and the irrup- 
tion of Western conquerors, the Jews adopted 
the Greek language from necessity; partly as 
a conquered people, and partly from intercourse 
of life and commerce, in colonies, in cities, 
founded like Alexandria, and others, which were 
peopled with throngs of Jews." " When to this 
we add, that they spoke in Greek on the things 
of the true God, and the relations of mankind to 
Jehovah and to a Saviour — subjects to which no 
native Greek had ever applied his beautiful lan- 
guage, it will be obvious that an appeal merely 
to classic Greek and its philology will not 
suffice for the interpreter of the New Tes- 
tament. The Jewish-Greek must be studied 
almost as an independent dialect, $r." 

And the Rev. Dr. E. Hall, of Connecticut, to 
whose able work on baptism, I acknowledge 
myself especially indebted for the suggestion of 
the main argument of this treatise — remarks as 
follows: " The sole intent of all this discussion 
about the classic use and the New Testament 
use, is to show that the word baptize in the New 
Testament may have left its primary classic sig- 



THE GREEK PLOW. 31 

nification, and have received a generic, sacred 
use, equivalent to washing or purifying, ivithout 
the least reference to the mode in which that 
" washing of water " is performed. Whether 
this be the fact or not, is to be learned not from 
the Greek classics, but from the New Testament 
itself. As to this matter of fact, Mark and Luke 
and Paul are better witnesses concerning what 
they themselves understood by the word baptize, 
than Xenophon, Aristotle, or than even that He- 
brew of Hebrews, the Jewish Josephus, when he 
is using the word in the sense of the Greek 
classics, with no reference to its use as applied 
to a religious ordinance." He, therefore, who 
undertakes to prove the nature or mode of Chris- 
tian baptism from the previous meaning of the 
name, now used to designate it, argues inconclu- 
sively. 

The word arotron, (aporpov,) for instance, in 
ancient Greek, signifies a plow. But the plow 
used by the Greeks, and designated by this name, 
was a straight stick of timber, some six or eight 
feet long, sharpened at one end, with a clevis at 
a suitable distance from the sharpened point, by 
which it was draw 7 n, while it was steered by a 



32 MODE OF BAPTKM. 

man at the other end of the stick. The plow 
used in Greece, at the present day, I am told, is 
of this description. It is known in the history 
of mechanics, as the old Roman plow. 

Now suppose the Greeks should invade and 
conquer us, as they did the Jews of Palestine, and 
should make it necessary for us, as it was for them, 
to learn the Greek language, and to call our im- 
plements of agriculture, and other things, by 
Greek names. And suppose, in our new lan- 
guage, we should call our plow arotron. Does 
not every one perceive, that the word arotron, 
thus applied, has a new meaning, conformed to 
the thing which it is now used to designate? 
Does it still mean, with us, a straight stick, be- 
cause that was its primary meaning in classical 
Greek? We know it does not. We look at 
the plow in daily use among ourselves, with its 
colter, and share, and handles, and other admira- 
ble contrivances, and when we call it arotron, 
we mean just what this thing, the modern plow, 
really is. Thus the w T ord, in our use of it to 
express an existing thing, loses its primitive 
meaning. It no longer means, with us, a straight 
stick, but a veritable Yankee plow. 



THE GREEK PLOW. 33 

It needs no great learning to see the point of 
this statement. It is open to the common sense 
of plain men, for whom I have designed it. I 
wish the reader to be done with the embarrass- 
ment he inay have felt from much of the classical 
learning, which has been displayed on the primi- 
tive meaning of /3a*rj£w (baptize*) and /3atfrw 
(bapto,) which is a still more primitive word, 
and of course, still further removed, if possible, 
from the religious idea expressed by baptizo, in 
the New Testament. All this learning is mis- 
applied. It serves only to darken counsel by 
words without knowledge, because it has really 
no bearing whatever on the subject of Christian 
baptism* Arotron as used by us, in the case 
which I have supposed, would mean the plow in 
common use among ourselves, and how absurd 

* This, I am aware is a strong expression. I do 
not mean to affirm that there was no reason for the 
selection ofbaptizo to denote Christian baptism, rather 
than any other Greek word. There is an analogy be- 
tween its primitive meaning and its religious mean- 
ing ; and that was a good reason for its selection. But 
since it has been appropriated to this specific use, we 
are to learn its new meaning, not from that analogy, 
but from the thing which it now signifies. 



34 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

would it appear to tKe common sense of the 
generations that shall come after us, if someone 
should rise up a hundred years hence, and un- 
dertake to prove, with a great parade of learn- 
ing, that the plow called by us arotron, was 
certainly a straight stick, and nothing else, be- 
cause that is the meaning of the word arotron^ 
in all the Greek classics! And this I think the 
reader will see is a fair illustration of the fallacy 
of the argument derived from the ancient clas- 
sical meaning of baptizo, to prove that immer- 
sion is certainly the only baptism. The argu- 
ment is wide of the point at issue, and is of no 
practical importance, because it has no bearing 
upon the question in dispute. 

The foregoing illustration also suggests the 
only way in which we may hope to come to the 
truth on this subject. It is to consider histori- 
cally the thing, which our Saviour requires, in 
his command to his disciples under the name of 
baptism. The scriptural meaning of this word, 
when applied to the religious ordinance in ques- 
tion, is what we wish to understand. We do 
not ask, therefore, what bapto and baptizo meant, 
in their secular use, before they were applied to 



MEANING OF BAPTIZO. 35 

express a religious idea of any sort. Nor do we 
ask what a heathen Greek — before he had ever 
seen the thing here called baptism — w T ould have 
imagined the Saviour to mean by this word ? 
Nor, again, do we ask what is the meaning of 
this word, w r hen used in a merely secular sense, 
with no reference to the religious rite of baptism, 
even in the New Testament? Neither of these 
inquiries reaches the point in debate. The true 
question relates wholly to the meaning of the 
wond as used by the Saviour himself, and as un- 
derstood by his disciples in reference to Chris- 
tian baptism and analogous rites; and this can 
be ascertained only from the history of the things, 
the religious observances, to which it is applied in 
the sacred writings. This history was familiar to 
Christ and his apostles. It was contained in 
their own scriptures, and was a part of their 
daily experience. It must, therefore, have fur- 
nished the elements of the meaning which they 
attached to the word baptizo, when they used it 
to designate a religious ordinance which they 
both commanded and observed. 



SECTION III. 

SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MEANING OF THE 
WORD BAPTISM (f3oLtfri(fpbg) INDEPENDENT OF THE 
MODE OF ITS ADMINISTRATION, AND OF SPRINKLING 
AS THE ONLY MODE OF BAPTISM MADE KNOWN IN 
THE BIBLE. 

There were various ritual or prescribed obser- 
vances under the law of Moses, in which both 
water and blood were used as emblems of puri- 
fication or cleansing; which the apostle denomi- 
nates (Heb. 9: 10,) "divers washings." In the 
original it is 5ia<popoi£ fiaimtfpoTg (divers baptisms.) 

The reader should here possess himself of de- 
finite impressions, as to the true nature of these 
Jewish purifications or baptisms They were 
not literal or actual washings of the body, which 
were prescribed in these rites, but only symbolical 
cleansings. They were external ceremonies or 
observances, in which water or blood was ap- 
plied to persons and things, as a symbol, emblem, 
or sign of their purification, as consecrated to 
God and accepted by him. There was no neces- 



SYMBOLICAL PURIFICATIONS. 37 

sity, therefore, that the water, or purifying ele- 
ment, should be used in a sufficient quantity to 
accomplish an actual washing. Any quantity, 
applied in any mode, might serve as a symbol of 
cleansing, just as the smallest quantities of bread 
and wine, broken and poured out, in whatever 
mode, are appropriate symbols of the broken 
body and shed blood of Christ, in the sacrament 
of the Lord's Supper. 

This is a principle well settled in the scrip- 
tures, as acceptable to God in the worship which 
he requires of men. A purification thus pro- 
fessed and symbolized is a part of the scripture 
language of worship, a seal of covenant engage- 
ments and promises. So among the Jews, when 
the body of a murdered man had been found, and 
the murderer had eluded discovery, the elders of 
the city nearest to the place where the body was 
found, were required to wash their hands — not 
their whole bodies — over a slain heifer, as a 
public pledge or protestation of their entire inno- 
cence in this matter. (Deut. 21 : 1-9.) And 
David says, (Ps. 26 : 6,) " I will wash my hands 
in innocency." Here the washing of the handj 
was intended as an emblem of the innocencv of 



38 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

the whole man. So Pilate "took water and 
washed his hands, saying I am innocent of the 
blood of this just person." (Mat. 28 : 24.) And 
our Saviour said to Peter, " He that is washed 
needeth not save to w T ash his feet, and is clean 
every whit." (John 13: 10.) 

The true meaning, therefore, of the " divers 
baptisms" under the law, and of Christian baptism 
— the main idea, the thing commanded — is puri- 
fication or consecration. This is the thing signi- 
fied by the external symbol; and the mode of 
applying the symbol is comparatively unimport- 
ant. This is especially the case in Christian 
baptism. Hence no particular mode is prescribed 
in our Saviour's command to his disciples to 
baptize ; and the only thing upon which the 
mind can fasten, in this command, as of divine 
obligation, is the thing signified by the word 
baptize, which is to purify, or to consecrate, by 
the application of water in some mode. And 
not only is no precise mode of applying the 
symbol prescribed in the command, but no mode 
is spoken of afterwards, as binding, or as com- 
manded. The thing called baptism, or purifica- 
tion, is commanded, but nothing said of the mode; 



SYMBOLICAL PURIFICATIONS. 39 

and I maintain that the mode is not indicated by 
the names baptism and purification. These 
names are used to designate the thing itself, 
which is symbolical cleansing, or consecration. 
And these names, in this respect, are synonymous. 
They mean the same thing. Both in the New 
Testament and in the writings of the Christian 
fathers, they are used interchangeably, the one 
for the other.* 

An example of this is found, Luke 11: 38-41. 
We are here told that a certain Pharisee invited 
the Saviour to dine with him; " and he went in 
and sat down to meat. And w T hen the Pharisee 
saw it, he marveled that he had not washed 
(sScMirio'dr), ebaptisihe, baptized,) before dinner." 
And the Lord said unto him, " Now do ye Pha- 
risees make clean (xaQapigsrs, katharizete, pu- 
rify) the outside of the cup and the platter," &c. 
" But rather give alms," * * ■* * " and behold 
all things are clean (xo^apa, kaihara, pure) 
unto you." Now the subject of the Pharisee's 
wonder was the fact of the Saviour's not bap- 

* President. Beecher in his articles in the Am. Bib. 
Repos., 1840-1, has furnished ample proof of the cor- 
rectness of this statement. 



40 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

tizing before dinner. But the Saviour, in shaping 
his reply to meet the point of the Pharisee's ob- 
jection, addresses him on the practice of purify- 
ing the outward man, and of being over-exact 
in mere legal or superstitious distinctions between 
clean and unclean things, in a ceremonial sense, 
and advances the principle elsewhere expressed, 
that " to the pure" — morally — " all things are 
pure." Does not the obvious and natural force 
of this whole passage go to show, that baptizo 
is here used in the sense of katharizo, to purify? 
There was an occurrence also, recorded John 
3: 25, 26, which shows conclusively, that the 
simple idea, at this time attached to baptism, w T as 
that of purifying or cleansing. " Then there 
arose a question, between some of John's disci- 
ples and the Jews, about purifying (xa^apitfjAou, 
katharismou.) And they came to John, and said 
unto him, Rabbi, he that was w T ith thee beyond 
Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, the same 
baptizeth, and all men come to him." The sub- 
ject of dispute here was evidently the Jewish 
rite of purifying, which these Jews had heard 
that Jesus was practising — " though Jesus him- 
self baptized not, but his disciples," (John 4:2,) 



BAPTIZE NOT TRANSLATED. 41 

and, to settle this question <c about purifying" 
they appeal to John on the subject of baptism., 
showing plainly that they considered baptism, as 
performed by John and by Christ's disciples, the 
same thing as the Jewish rite of purification, and 
that they used the words baptizo and katharizo, 
to purify, indifferently, the one for the other, 
when they spoke of these ordinances. 

Yet purify, in our language, would not be a 
perfect translation of baptizo, because purify, 
with us, has no exclusively sacred meaning; and 
we have no word that has such a meaning, in re- 
spect to this ordinance, excepting baptize. This 
is the word which is more frequently used, than 
purify, in the Greek of the New Testament, to de- 
note this ordinance. Thus it had acquired, as we 
have seen, a peculiar meaning, appropriate to the 
thing which it was now used to signify. And 
there was no word in any other language, except- 
ing the Hebrew, which did signify this thing. 
Hence when the Bible came to be translated into 
Latin, this word baptizo was simply transferred, 
not translated, because it was the only word in ex- 
istence, excepting purify, which had been com- 
monly used to denote the Christian sacrament of 



42 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

baptism. There were words in Latin, which 
signified immerse and submerge, but these did 
not properly define the ordinance. It w T as not 
immersion, but baptism, in the sense of symbo- 
lical purification. So in translating the Bible 
into Latin, (see the Vulgate,} the learned men 
of the fourth century did not employ immergo or 
submergo, but the Greek word baptizo. And 
this was done at a time when, if baptism was 
not commonly administered by immersion, yet 
immersion was certainly practised in connection 
w T ith it. But immersion, as a mode, did not ex- 
press the meaning of baptism, because many 
things that were immersed, were not baptized. 

For the same reason, when the Bible was 
translated into English, the word baptize w T as 
simply transferred. To have used the word 
plunge, or immerse, or sprinkle, or pour, or 
purify, would have been a false translation of 
haptizo, because none of these words would de- 
fine the religious ordinance in question. They 
mean any kind of plunging, &c, and have nc 
appropriate sacred sense. But baptism, as yet. 
had no meaning in the English language. 11 
was not an English word. But in the Greek 



BAPTIZE NOT TRANSLATED. 43 

of the New Testament, and in the Latin transla- 
tion of the Bible, it had been long appropriated 
as the name of the Christian sacrament referred 
to. The transfer of this word baptism into the 
English Bible was only calling the thing by its 
right name. It had no other name in any lan- 
guage, and this name having been adopted in 
our Bible, and used in all religious writings to 
denote that peculiar thing called baptism, has 
become naturalized as its name in our language. 
It means the Christian sacrament of baptism, and 
nothing else. And we have no other word in 
the language which expresses this meaning. 

The word baptism, therefore, in its sacred 
use to signify symbolical purification, conveys 
no idea as to the mode of purifying. Much less 
does it define a particular mode. Yet there was 
a mode of performing this rite. If the thing 
itself was done, it was of course done in some 
mode. And there may have been different modes 
adopted at different times. But it is not impro- 
bable that both prescription and usage had led 
to some degree of uniformity in the mode. If, 
therefore, we can learn what was the common 
mode of purifying among the Jews, we may 



44 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

reasonably infer that the same or a similar mode 
was practised by John and by the disciples of 
Christ, in baptizing. 

Let us recur then to the remark with which 
this Section was introduced, viz., that there were 
various ritual or prescribed observances, under 
the law of Moses, in which both water and blood 
were used as emblems of purification or cleans- 
ing. And the " water-pots" and other prepara- 
tions for these observances were in common use, 
in our Saviour's time. So, at the marriage feast 
in Cana of Galilee, we read, (John 2 : 6,) that 
" there were set there six water-pots of stone 
after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, 
containing two or three firkins apiece." These 
things were all familiar to Christ and his disci- 
ples, long before Christian baptism was instituted, 
and when they spoke of them in the Greek lan- 
guage, they called them purifyings, or baptisms. 
So, (Heb. 9: 10,) the apostle speaks of the Jew- 
ish ritual service as standing " in meats, and 
drinks, and divers washings" (baptisms.) Then, 
going on to compare the Jewish dispensation 
with that of Christ, to show the glory of the 



SPRINKLING. 45 

latter, the apostle refers to one of these divers 
baptisms, and shows us what he means. 

The case to which he refers is that described 
(Nam. 19: 17, 18,) as follows: "And for an 
unclean person, they shall take of the ashes of 
the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and run- 
ning water shall be put thereto in a vessel; 
And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it 
in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and 
upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that 
were there, and upon him that touched a bone, 
or one slain, or one dead, or a grave." Now it 
is this sprinkling, which the apostle refers to, as 
one of the divers baptisms, which were practised 
among the Jews, and says, (Heb. 9: 13, 14,) " If 
the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of 
a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to 
the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall 
the blood of Christ, &c. purge your conscience 
from dead works?" 

It is clear, from these expressions, that sprink- 
ling, in the mind of the apostle, was a mode of 
baptism. It was a baptism too, which was em- 
blematic of purification, the very thing that bap- 
tism signifies under 0>e gospel, according to the 



46 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

different ideas of 'purification in the two dispen- 
sations, the one of the flesh, the other of the 
spirit. And the sprinkling was here performed 
in a summary way, w T ith a bunch of hyssop, 
which they dipped in the fluid and sprinkled it 
upon the people in groups, as they stood. This 
hyssop was a small herb, probably resembling 
moss. It is spoken of (1 Kings 4: 33,) where 
it is called " the hyssop that springeth out of the 
wall." This they used alone, or mixed it with 
wool, as a kind of sponge, for the purpose of re- 
taining w r ater. And the sprinkling with this 
was a baptism, in the scripture meaning of bap- 
tizo. It is here called a baptism by the apostle. 
He proceeds to speak of a similar baptism 
performed by Moses, when he dedicated the first 
testament, and says, (Heb. 9: 19,) " When Moses 
had spoken every precept to all the people, ac- 
cording to the law, he took the blood of calves 
and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and 
hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the 
people. The reference here is to Exod. 24 : 
5-8. How grand and solemn was the occasion, 
when Moses thus dedicated the covenant ! There 
were at that time six hundred thousand men 



SPRINKLING. 47 

capable of bearing arms in Israel. The people 
must have numbered two or three millions. Yet 
they were all baptized with water mingled with 
blood, and spri?ikled s upon them from a bunch of 
hyssop and wool, as an emblem of their religious 
purification before God. 

Now it is in vain to say that these were Jew- 
ish ordinances which were done aw T ay in Christ, 
and therefore prove nothing. They do prove 
the very thing for which I bring them forward. 
They prove that sprinkling, in the mind of the 
apostle, so far as the meaning of the word is 
concerned, was a mode of baptism. 

Another of these divers baptisms is described, 
Num. 8:7. In purifying the Levites and setting 
them apart to their office, Moses says: "Thus 
shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them ; Sprinkle 
water of purifying upon them," &c. The leper 
was in like manner to be cleansed by sprinkling. 
(Levit. 14 : 7.) 

Sprinkling, then, among the Jews, was the 
emblem of cleansing or purification. But Christ 
and his apostles w T ere born in the Jewish church, 
and were familiar with this idea so often exem- 
plified in the daily services to which they were 



48 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

accustomed. So, when speaking of the spiritual 
cleansing produced by the blood of Christ, Paul 
calls it "the blood of sprinkling." (Heb. 12: 
24,) and Peter calls it the " sprinkling of the 
blood of Jesus Christ, 55 (1 Pet. 1 : 2.) 

Now Christian baptism was instituted as an 
emblem of this same internal spiritual cleansing, 
of which both Paul and Peter speak above, as a 
sprinkling. This was the idea in their minds 
when they thought of the significancy of the 
ordinance of baptism. They never speak of it 
as an immersion in the blood of Christ, or an 
immersion in the Holy Ghost. They attached 
no such idea to the mode of purification external 
or internal, whether by blood, by water, or by 
spirit. 

It is true indeed that the word, tabal, in the 
Hebrew scriptures, which is rendered by baptizo 
in Greek, occurs some fourteen times in the Old 
Testament, where it does not mean to sprinkle, 
but to dip, as to dip the finger in blood, (Lev. 
4: 6,) to dip hyssop in water to sprinkle with, 
(Num. 19 : 18,) to dip a piece of bread in vine- 
gar, (Ruth 2: 14,) to dip the feet in oil, (Deut. 
33: 24,) &c. But in all these cases, the word 



PURIFICAION OF PERSONS. 49 

is used in reference to things and not to persons, 
and in no case is it used to denote 'purification. 
In all cases of the use of water or blood, in the 
Old Testament, as an emblem of purification in 
respect to persons, sprinkling is the word used. 
I do not doubt that in the bathings practised by 
the Jews, immersions, as a matter of fact, were 
common; but they were not enjoined in the law. 
Dr. E. Beecher, in his article on the " Import of 
Batf<n£w," in the Bib. Repos., for 1840, after a 
thorough examination, does not hesitate to say, 
" It is perfectly plain, therefore, that, whatever 
was the practice of the Jews, no immersions of 
persons were enjoined, and the whole Mosaic 
ritual, as to personal ablution, could be fulfilled 
to the letter without a single immersion. The 
only immersions enjoined in the Mosaic law were 
immersions of things, as vessels, sacks, skins, &c, 
to which no reference is had in Heb. 9 : 10." 

These facts are important to be remembered; 
for the apostle (Heb. 9 : 10,) is not speaking of 
all the purifications or ablutions performed by 
the Jews, but only of those of persons, which he 
says, (v. 13,) " sanctified to the purification of 
4 



50 MODE OF EAPTISM. 

the flesh" and which, of course, had respect to 
the person of the worshipper. 

Professor Stuart also, in his article on Bap 
tism, (Bib. Repos., 1833,) says, " We find, then 
no example among all the Levitical washings, 
or ablutions, where immersion of the person is 
required." (Vol. 3, p. 341.) 

From this fact, so fully attested, it must be 
inferred that sprinkling, so far as the mode is 
concerned, was the idea in the minds of Christ 
and his apostles in the institution of baptism, as 
an emblem of the spiritual cleansing of persons. 
Carrying this idea into practice, they .would 
naturally adopt sprinkling as their mode of bap- 
tism. That they actually did baptize in this 
mode will appear still more probable from con- 
siderations yet to be introduced. 



SECTION IV. 

THE NATURE AND DESIGN OF JOHN'S BAPTISM, AND OF 
THE BAPTISM OF OUR SAVIOUR BY JOHN. 

Having, in the preceding Section, referred to 
the baptism of John, I think it proper to remark 
here, that, besides the Jewish rites of purifica- 
tion, other baptisms somewhat peculiar had been 
introduced, and were well known to Christ and 
his disciples, before the institution of Christian 
baptism by our Saviour. 

To say nothing here of the Jewish proselyte 
baptism,* which I shall have occasion to con- 
sider more at large hereafter, the baptism of John 
had already been commenced and concluded. 
The nature of this baptism, therefore, should be 
considered, to show the prevalent use of the 
word, baptizo, at the time of our Saviour's last 

* Whatever may have been the mode of the Jewish 
proselyte baptism, it should be remembered that this 
baptism was a mere usage, which had grown up, and 
was not an institution of the Mosaic law. Nor is it 
named in the scriptures. 



52 .MODE OF BAPTISM. 

command to his disciples. I do not now allude 
to the mode of John's baptism, which will be 
discussed in its proper place. But it is import- 
ant for the reader to have in his mind some ac- 
curate views of the distinctive character of this 
baptism. 

Let it be understood, then, that John's bap- 
tism was not Christian baptism. John began 
to preach and baptize, six months before Christ 
entered upon his public ministry. His baptism, 
therefore, cannot be supposed to be Christian 
baptism, without involving the absurdity ot 
supposing that the initiating ordinance of the 
Christian system existed six months previous to 
Christianity itself. And if this were so, it w r ould 
prove that Christ did not institute Christian bap- 
tism, which is also absurd; for the law of Moses 
did not end in John, but in Christ. The legal 
dispensation, indeed, w T as in full force during all 
the time of John's ministry., and the personal 
ministry of Christ, and came to its close only in 
the death and resurrection of the Saviour, after 
which, as we have seen, Christian baptism was 
instituted. 

Again, John baptized his disciples on profes- 



john's baptism. 53 

sion of repentance. Christian baptism is pro- 
perly administered to adults, only on the profes- 
sion of regeneration. (Acts 19: 4; 2 : 38; Gal. 
3: 27.) The faith which John required was 
faith in a Saviour yet to come; and this was the 
faith of all the Jews, who believed the prophe- 
cies of their own scriptures. So Paul declares, 
(Acts 19: 4) "John verily baptized Avith the 
baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, 
thai they should believe on him, who should come 
after him, that is, on Christ Jesus." But John 
did not baptize in the name of Christ, nor in the 
name of the Holy Ghost. If he had, he would 
have given his disciples appropriate instruction, 
and certainly would have taught the people to 
know that he was not himself the Christ. Yet 
it is said, (Luke 3: 15,) "All men mused in 
their hearts, of John, whether he were the Christ 
or not." And after John had finished his minis- 
try, having baptized a large proportion of the 
people of Judea, our Saviour propounded to his 
disciples, the following question, (Mat. 16: 13, 
14,) " Who do men say that I, the Son of man, 
am? And they said, Some say that thou art 



54 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

John the Baptist: some Elias: and others. Jere- 
mias, or one of the Prophets." 

Here was a degree of prevailing ignorance of 
Christ quite inconsistent with the supposition 
that John had baptized in his name. Indeed 
John himself appears not to have know r n the 
Saviour's person, until he had been several 
months baptizing " with the baptism of repent- 
ance." Hence previous to the Saviour's bap- 
tism, he expressly declares, " I knew him not." 
(John 1: 32-34.) And as to any recognition 
of the Holy Ghost in John's baptism, some whom 
he had baptized, themselves affirmed, (Acts 19: 
2, 3,) " We have not so much as heard whether 
there be any Holy Ghost." So Paul baptized 
them " in the name of the Lord Jesus," paying 
no regard to their having been baptized by John. 
(Acts 19: 5.) This surely he would not have 
done, if the baptism of John had been Christian 
baptism. 

It appears then that John's baptism was 
finished before the institution of Christian bap- 
tism, and that it was different in its design and 
in its distinctive character. It took place not 
under Christ, but under the Jewish dispensation. 



John's baptism. 55 

That dispensation continued in full force until 
the death of Christ. Then the veil of the tem- 
ple was rent in twain, the great sacrifice for sin 
was offered, and the typical sacrifices ceased. 
Then Christ blotted out the hand-writing of 
ordinances, that was against us, and took it out 
of the way, " nailing it to the cross. 5 ' (Col. 2: 
14.) Yet the baptism of John was not strictly 
a Jewish ordinance, but rather a Divine ordi- 
nance independent of Judaism. It was not of 
the law, but was a specific institution for a spe- 
cial purpose; and being peculiar in its design, 
it w r as of only temporary application. It was 
an ordinance for the time being, preparatory to 
the ministry of Christ. Like the preaching of 
John, and his ministry in general, it w T as to " pre- 
pare the way of the Lord ;" and like the ordi- 
nances strictly Jewish, it was done away in 
Christ. 

It may be remarked al*o here, that Christ 
himself, as well as his fore-runner, lived under 
the old dispensation, and was a strict observer of 
the institutions of Moses. He was " made under 
the law," and all that was done in the church, 
previous to the Saviour's death, belonged pro- 



56 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

perly to that dispensation, So the baptism of 
the Saviour by John was not Christian baptism; 
that is, it was not the baptism which he himself 
afterwards instituted as a Christian sacrament. 
Nor was he baptized in his own name. His 
receiving baptism at the hands of John was evi- 
dently one of his acts of submission to the ordi- 
nances then existing in the church, whether 
strictly Jewish, or appropriate to the ministry of 
his forerunner. And so, when " John forbade 
him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, 
and comest thou to me?" he said, " Suffer it to 
be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all 
righteousness," that is, to fulfil every ordinance. 
(Mat. 3 : 14, 15.) 

Nor did this baptism of Christ, by John, par- 
take of the nature of John's baptism, as admin- 
istered to others. It was not a baptism " unto 
repentance;" for Christ had no sin to repent of. 
It was not, as in the case of all others, preparatory 
to the reception of the Saviour; for he was him- 
self the Saviour. But the rite here administered 
was peculiar and appropriate to its adorable 
subject. 

Christ was now in his thirtieth year — the age 



Christ's baptism. 57 

at which, by the appointment of God, the priests 
under the law were to undertake the duties of 
their office. He was a " high-priest," and was 
about to enter upon his public ministry. This 
baptism, in his case, was not — it could not have 
been a symbol of cleansing, but of priestly con- 
secration. So Christ exercised the office of a 
priest during his personal ministry. It w T as in 
this character that he purged the temple; and 
when the chief priests and elders demanded of 
him, by what authority he did these things, he 
appealed to the baptism of John, for a vindica- 
tion of his authority. (Mat. 21: 12,23-27.) 
If the Jews had acknowledged the baptism of 
John to have been from heaven, he would doubt- 
less have silenced them by saying, " It was by 
that baptism that I was consecrated to my 
priestly office;" for, among the Jews, what was 
done by an accredited prophet of the Lord, was 
both authoritative and irreversible.* 

# Hibbard on Baptism, p. 4 



SECTION V. 

ALL THE QUESTIONS ON THE MODE OF BAPTISM RE- 
DUCED TO ONE. THE WATER APPLIED TO THE 
PERSON, AND NOT THE PERSON TO THE WATER. 

All the questions that have been raised, as to 
the mode of baptism, resolve themselves into this 
one: Is the water to be applied to the person, 
or is the person to be applied to the water? 
Shall the water be poured or sprinkled on the 
person, or must the person be dipped or immersed 
into the water? This is the question; and I 
maintain that the applying of the water to the 
person is the only mode of baptism, as a reli- 
gious ordinance, made known in the scriptures. 
My position is that the Bible invariably teaches 
that in the administration of baptism to persons, 
both Jewish and Christian, the water was ap- 
plied to the subject of the ordinance — the person. 
Some of the proofs of this will now be adduced. 



60 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

1. The Primary Idea of Purifying. 

The thing signified by baptism, both Jewish 
and Christian, as we have seen (Sec. Ill,) was 
purifying, or cleansing. But the primary idea 
of purifying, or cleansing, is the application of 
water to the person or thing purified or cleansed. 
So, in the examples already referred to, in the 
Old Testament, of ceremonial cleansings — which 
the apostle calls baptisms — the water was ap- 
plied to the persons, and not the persons to the 
water. They w T ere in every instance performed 
by sprinkling. 

2. Purifications of Things, as well as Persons. 
The Baptism of Cups, and Pots, and Brazen- 
Vessels and Tables. 

But there were ceremonial purifications of 
things, as well as of persons, among the Jews, 
which Christ and his apostles were accus- 
tomed to speak of as baptisms. The evange- 
list Mark says, (7: 4,) of the Pharisees and all 
the Jews, " When they come from the market, 
except they wash, (baptize) they eat not. 
And many other things there be, which they 



WATER APPLIED TO THINGS. 61 

have received to hold, as the washing {baptisms) 
of cups, and pots, and brazen vessels, and tables." 
The word here translated tables is xXivwv (Jdinon) 
and properly signifies beds or couches. It is so 
translated in the 30th verse of this chapter, and 
in eight other places where it occurs in the New 
Testament. They had no chairs, and these 
couches were a kind of sofa or divan, on which 
they were accustomed to sit, leaning on each 
other, according to the usual mode of sitting in 
those days. 

Now the " cups, and pots, and brazen vessels," 
here spoken of, may possibly have been im- 
mersed all over in water. But this is by no 
means probable. They doubtless w T ashed them 
in a common-sense way, by the application of 
water with the hand, or a cloth, holding them 
partly in the water, or over it, or they poured 
water on them, to suit their convenience. And 
to suppose that the beds or couches were im- 
mersed, would be preposterous, especially if we 
consider the superstition of the Jews, which led 
them to practice these purifications many times 
in a day. To have immersed their couches so 
often would have kept them constantly unfit for 



62 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

use. Besides, these washings, or baptisms, were 
merely ceremonial, and we have already seen 
that such purifications or baptisms, in many cases, 
were performed by sprinkling. 

So of the first part of this verse, (Mark 7: 4,) 
" Except they wash (baptize) they eat not." 
This baptizing was the simple washing of the 
hands with a little water drawn from the water- 
pots, and poured on them. This is abundantly 
proved by the custom still prevalent in those 
Eastern countries. It was a mere ceremonial 
washing, and the water-pots were not of suffi- 
cient dimensions to render immersion possible. 
They contained only " two or three firkins/ 5 
that is about ten or twelve gallons, " apiece;" 
and they were made small at the top, like a 
common jar. Yet the washing of the hands with 
a little water drawn from these pots, and poured 
on them, was a baptism, that is, a purification^ 
of the whole person from ceremonial defilement. 
Thus far it is plain that baptisms were perform- 
ed by applying the water to the person, and not 
the person to the water. 



BAPTISM IN THE CLOUD. 63 

3. Figurative Allusions. Baptism " in the 
Cloud and in the Sea" The Salvation of 
Eight Souls in the Jlrk, likened to Baptism. 

This same idea is illustrated by what is 
said of baptism in reference to occurrences 
resembling the purifications of the Jews, but 
where the rite of purifying was not literally 
performed. Paul says, (1 Cor. 10 : 2,) that 
the Israelites " were all baptized unto Moses, 
in the cloud and in the sea." What does 
this mean? The reference is to the passage 
of Israel out of Egypt, (Exod. 14 : 19, &c.) 
where it is most manifest that there w T as no im- 
mersion in water, but water was poured or 
sprinkled on them from the cloud. The record 
says, that the cloud " went from before their 
face and stood behind them." It doubtless 
passed over their heads, and in passing, it rained 
upon them, as Asaph declares, (Ps. 77: 17,) 
probably referring to this very event, "The 
clouds poured out water." Perhaps, however, 
the baptism in the cloud did not occur at the 
same time with the baptism in the sea. Profes- 
sor Stuart says — I know not on what authority — 



64 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

" the cloud on this occasion was not a cloud of 
rain."* Admitting that it was not, still there 
was a cloud of rain that attended them on their 
journey. This fact is recognized in the song of 
Deborah, (Judges 5: 4,) "0 Lord, when thou 
wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of 
the field of Edom, the earth trembled, the hea- 
vens dropped [distilled), the clouds also drop- 
ped water" And the Psalmist declares, (Ps. 68 : 
7, 9,) " God, when thou wentest forth before 
thy people, when thou didst march through the 
wilderness," &c, " thou, God, didst send a 
plentiful rain, w T hereby thou didst confirm thine 
inheritance when it was weary." And this 
illustrates the meaning of the expression, " were 
all baptized unto Moses, in the cloud." They 
were thus confirmed, when they were weary, in 
their allegiance to Moses, as their divinely con- 
stituted leader, and, as it were consecrated anew 
to the service of God, under the law. Their 
baptism, however, was by sprinkling and not by 
immersion. 

But Paul says, they were baptized, not in the 

*Bib.Repos. 1833, p. 336. 



BAPTISM IN THE SEA. 65 

cloud only but also in the sea, that is the Red- 
Sea, when they passed through it by the dividing 
of the waters. Here too there was no immer- 
sion, but they w T ere baptized by sprinkling. 
We are told, (Exod. 14 : 22,) that " the children 
of Israel w T ent into the midst of the sea on dry 
ground; and the waters were a w T all unto them, 
on their right hand and on their left." They 
w r ere not immersed, but the " strong east wind," 
which divided the w T aters, no doubt produced a 
dashing* of the spray, which sprinkled them In 
no other way could they have been baptized by 
the waters of the sea, in the case here referred 
to. The Egyptians, who followed after them, 
" even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his 
horsemen," (Exod. 14: 23,) were truly immersed; 
they were " buried in immersion unto death," 
as our Baptist brethren are so fond of saying; 
"they sank as lead in the mighty waters." 
(Exod. 15: 10.) If, then, the apostle designed 
to represent baptism as immersion, why did he 
refer to the Israelites, w T ho w r ent over on dry 
land, and were only sprinkled by the spray of 
the sea? Why did he not speak of the Egyp- 
tians, who were immersed and drowned in it? 
5 



66 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

They were truly baptized, according to the pri- 
mitive meaning claimed for the old heathen- 
Greek word baptizo. 

Peter says, (1 Pet. 3: 20, 21,) "The long 
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, 
while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that 
is eight souls, were saved by water. The like 
figure whereunto even baptism doth also now 
save us — not the putting away of the filth of the 
flesh, but the answer of a good conscience to- 
wards God — by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." 
Baptism is here represented as a means of salva- 
tion, by, or through, " the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ." It can be so, how T ever, only to such as 
receive the thing signified by baptism, viz., the 
cleansing influence of the Spirit of God. All 
such, through the resurrection of Christ from the 
dead, have a good hope of eternal life. And 
Peter here tells us that baptism as a means of 
salvation, was prefigured, not surely by the wa- 
ters of the flood, but by the salvation of those in 
the ark, w T ho " were saved by water." But how 
were they saved by water? Certainly not by 
submersion. This was the very evil, from which 
the ark was the instrument of their deliverance. 



BAPTISM IN THE SEA. 67 

All who were out of the ark perished. Submer- 
sion was as fatal to them, as it was to the Egyp- 
tians, who were buried in the Red Sea. But the 
ark and they that were in it were not immersed 
in the flood. They were borne aloft on the sur- 
face of the water, and the ark was sprinkled 
with the rain that fell from heaven, or with the 
dashing of the spray. This w r as the " figure, 
whereunto" Peter likens Christian baptism. It 
was a sprinkling with water, and the very idea 
of immersion is excluded. 



SECTION VI. 

THE MODE OF JOHN'S BAPTISM. 

John baptized with water, not into water; 
that is, he applied the water to the subject, and 
not the subject to the water. So he declares, 
(John 1: 31,) " Therefore am I come baptizing 
witlt water." And, (Mat. 3 : 11,) "I indeed bap- 
tize you with water, but he that cometh after 
me, &c, he shall baptize you with the Holy 
Ghost." To evade the force of this expression, 
it has been contended by some Baptist writers, 
that the Greek particle sv (en,) here rendered 
with, ought to be translated into, which is per- 
haps the more common meaning of this particle. 
But the latter clause of the verse shows the im- 
propriety of such a rendering here; for the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost is clearly an application 
of the Divine Spirit to the soul of the believer. 
It would be a plain perversion of the meaning 
of the passage to say, " he shall immerse you 
into the Holy Ghost." So John says, " I indeed 



john's baptism. 69 

baptize you with water," as Christ " shall bap- 
tize you with the Holy Ghost." 

But if we were not so emphatically told, as 
we are in these passages, that John baptized with 
water, the impossibility of his having immersed 
the immense multitude that came to him, proves 
that he must have baptized them in some other 
way; and the proofs are strong and conclusive 
not only that he did not apply the persons to the 
water, but that he did apply the water to the 
persons by some mode of sprinkling. 

Let the reader examine the subject of John's 
baptism as it is presented in the New Testament, 
and see if we are not justified in this statement. 
Matthew says, (3 : 5, 6,) " There went out to 
him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region 
round about Jordan, and were baptized of him 
in Jordan,* confessing their sins." Mark says, 
(1: 5,) " There went out to him all the land of 

* The expression in Jordan — sv <r£ Iop(5avr— is often 
quoted by Baptists to prove that John's baptism was 
by immersion. But if this proves immersion in the 
Jordan, a similar expression — Mark 1 : 4 — proves im- 
mersion in the wilderness ; for it is there said " John 
was baptizing in the desert — sv <rw sp^w. 



70 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all bap- 
tized of him." Luke says, (3: 21,) " And when 
all the people were baptized, it came to pass, 
that Jesus himself, being baptized and praying, 
the heaven was opened," &c. 

Now the population of the city and region 
here described, as might be proved by credible 
historical testimony, was probably not less than 
six millions. In the days of king David, a 
thousand years before Christ, there were in Israel 
and Judah, one million and three hundred thou- 
sand " valiant men that drew the sword." (2 
Sam. 24: 9.) And this census was exclusive of 
the tribes of Levi and Benjamin, and of all the 
people under twenty years old. Reckoning five 
persons to every warrior in Israel and Judah, 
which is a moderate estimate, the whole popu- 
lation at that time was more than six millions. 
And, notwithstanding the frequent wars of the 
Jews, by which multitudes were slain, there is, 
in their strong aversion to other nations, and 
their love of their own country, which confined 
them mostly to Palestine, much to render it pro- 
bable that the population was not materially 
diminished in the time of our Saviour. The 



John's baptism. 71 

testimony of Josephus confirms the probability 
that the population of the holy land was as large 
as in the days of David. 

It is highly probable also, that a large pro- 
portion of this population were baptized by 
John. The representations of the three evan- 
gelists, which w T e have already quoted, show r 
this. And then it should be considered that 
John w r as the predicted messenger sent to pre- 
pare the way of Christ. (Mat. 11 : 10.) He 
was sent, not to any party of the Jews, but to 
the whole Jewish nation. All parties went out 
to see and hear him. There seems to have been 
no great division concerning him, as there w 7 as 
concerning Christ. His career was brief and 
popular. Hence our Saviour testified of him 
to the Jews, (John 5 : 35,) " He was a burning 
and a shining light; and ye were willing, for a 
season, to rejoice in his light." 

But, to be within bounds, respectable and 
learned writers, as Hibbard and Kurtz, have sup- 
posed, that John baptized only one-half of the 
people of Palestine, say three millions. Could 
he have done this by immersion? 

Let it be considered that John's ministry con- 



12 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

tinued only about nine months, when he was 
cast into prison by Herod the Tetrarch, and soon 
after beheaded, at the request of a dancing girl. 
He had been engaged in his ministry only about 
six months, when he baptized the Saviour, and 
continued about three^ months after that event. 
And it is easy to show that he could not have 
employed the whole of that time in baptizing. 

Suppose then, that John baptized, say, three 
millions of people in nine months. ~Deductforty 
three sabbaths, in which, according to the Jew- 
ish observance of the Sabbath, it was unlawful 
for him to baptize, and there are left, in all, two 
hundred and thirty-one days, in which he was 
perhaps engaged in this service. Now if we 
suppose him to have stood in the water and bap- 
tized by immersion, six hours every day, he 
must have immersed two thousand, one hundred 
and sixty-four every hour, thirty-six every mi- 
nute, and more than one every two seconds! 

But the supposition that John baptized so 
large a proportion of the people as one-half is 
perhaps extravagant. The expressions of the 
evangelists referred to, do not prove that he 
baptized one-half, any more than that he bap- 



John's baptism. 73 

tized the whole population. We are not author- 
ized, therefore, to fix upon any particular 
proportion. These expressions, however, and 
the whole history of John's ministry are suffi- 
cient to show that the multitude whom he bap- 
tized was very great. If we suppose it to have 
been only one twelfth 'part of the population; 
still it w T as five hundred thousand, which would 
require him to baptize three hundred and sixty- 
one every hour, and six every minute. 

For John, therefore, to have performed his 
baptisms by immersion, was plainly impossible. 
And it is in vain to say that he accomplished 
his ministry, in this thing, by miraculous power; 
for we are told, that when Christ was afterwards 
at the very place " where John at first baptized," 
" many resorted to him, and said, John did no 
miracle; but all things that John spake of this 
man were true." (John 10: 41.) 

It is clear then, that he could not have im- 
mersed all the people that came to him. Yet it 
is expressly said, that he baptized them all. It 
may be asked whether it was not equally impos- 
sible for John to baptize them, according to our 
mode, that is, by sprinkling them, one by one? 



74 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

Our reply is, that it is not at all necessary to 
suppose that he baptized them singly. The 
Jewish law did not require this; and John made 
no innovation upon the J e wish rites. He simply 
employed the customary ceremony of purifica- 
tion, for the purposes of his own ministry. 
Hence the Jews found no fault whatever with 
his mode of baptism; and the only imaginable 
reason is, that he conformed to their own usage. 
He doubtless took a bunch of hyssop, and made 
it sufficiently large for his purpose, and dipped 
it in w r ater, and sprinkled the people, as they 
came to him, in large numbers at a time. This, 
we have seen, w r as the Jewish mode of purifica- 
tion, which Paul calls baptism. 

It is manifest, also, that the vast multitude 
that collected around John, went out to hear 
him preach. They had no thought of being 
baptized, until they were convicted, and applied 
for baptism on the spot. Hence we are told, 
(John 1: 25,) that the Pharisees asked him, 
" Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that 
Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet ?" They 
went out, of course, without any change of 
raiment. No one surely will suppose that they 



BAPTIZING IN ENON. 75 

were immersed, with their clothing on, in these 
circumstances, and there is no intimation that 
they were denuded for this purpose. If, then, we 
had not been so pointedly informed, as we are, 
that John baptized this immense multitude not 
into w T ater, but with water, it would still be 
inconceivable that they were immersed. 

But it is said (John 3: 23,) that " John was 
baptizing in Enon, near to Salim, because there 
was much water there." " Why was this?" say 
our Baptist brethren. " Why did John choose a 
place where there was much water, if he per- 
formed his baptisms by sprinkling?" This ques- 
tion would be of some importance, if it had 
been said that John was at Enon for the con- 
venience of baptizing. But no such thing is 
intimated in scripture. 

The circumstances were these: John had been 
baptizing " in Bethabara beyond Jordan," (John 
1: 28.) All his earlier baptisms had been per- 
formed there. Why did he leave that broad 
river, and go to Enon? The Evangelist, ac- 
cording to our translation, says, it was " because 
there was much water there." But there was 
more water in the Jordan. If, then, he con- 



76 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

suited only the convenience of baptizing by 
immersion, there was no gain by his removal 
Surely he was as well accommodated in this 
respect, on the banks of the Jordan, as he could 
have been at Enon. 

But there was another reason for his removal, 
amply sufficient to account for his change of 
place. The Jordan is a turbid stream. The 
water of it is unfit for drink or culinary purpo- 
ses, until it has stood several hours in vessels 
and settled. But the waters of Enon were pure 
rivulets or streams, flowing from a single foun- 
tain or spring. The place has been identified 
by modern travelers, and it is plainly seen to 
have furnished far better accommodations than 
the region of the Jordan, for the encampment 
and comfort of the thousands and tens of thou- 
sands that attended the ministry of John. 
And the geography of the place has throw r n 
light upon the original expression, here trans- 
lated much water. It is tfoXXa vSara, {jpolla hu- 
data,) which literally signifies, not much water, 
Sort many waters or streams. And the reason 
is now plain why John resorted thither. He 
was perpetually attended by the greatest multi- 



BAPTIZING IN EN0N. 7? 

tude that ever assembled around a human being 
for instruction. Had they no use for these many 
waters excepting for the ordinance of baptism ? 
Were not these pure and healthful waters a great 
and almost indispensable convenience for drink- 
ing, and for culinary and other purposes? And 
did not their camels, and horses, and asses need 
water? Just such locations are selected by those 
who have experience in camp meetings in our 
own country. Pure and abundant springs, or 
streams of running w T ater, are regarded as indis- 
pensable for the comfort of the people and their 
beasts of burthen, without the slightest refer- 
ence to baptism in any mode. This passage, 
therefore, proves nothing as to the mode of John's 
baptism. It leaves us free to presume, that he 
baptized in Enon, as he did elsewhere, not into 
water, but with water. Doubtless he applied 
the water to the persons, and not the persons to* 
the water. 



SECTION VII. 

PROPHECIES INTIMATING THE MODE OF CHRISTIAN 
BAPTISM THE BAPTISM OF THE SPIRIT. 

The prophet Isaiah speaks of the coming of 
Christ and of the joy to be occasioned by the 
gospel, (Isaiah 52: 7-12;) also, of the humil- 
iation and exaltation of Christ, and the success 
of his cause, (13-15.) "Many nations," he 
predicted, were to be introduced into the Chris- 
tian church. Now if we turn to the second 
chapter of Acts, we find, that a few days after 
the Saviour's ascension, at the outpouring of the 
Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, " many nations, 5 ' 
by their representatives, were present to hear 
the apostles preach. Not less than nineteen or 
twenty different nations were represented; Par- 
thians, and Medes, and Elamites, &c. And 
three thousand of these representatives of " many 
nations," were, " on the same day," introduced 
into the Christian church by the initiatory rite 
of baptism. They were baptized; anr> this, I 



PROPHECIES RESPECTING BAPTISM. 79 

suppose, was according to the prophecy. But 
how w T as the baptism administered ? By turn- 
ing back to the prophecy referred to, we find 
how it was to be administered; (Isaiah 52: 15,) 
" So shall he sprinkle many nations." This, it 
appears, w T as to take place at -the very beginning 
of the promulgation of the gospel. Was the 
prophecy then fulfilled? If it was, then these 
nations received baptism by sprinkling, first the 
sprinkling of the blood of Christ, in spiritual 
influences, and secondly the sprinkling of water 
in external baptism. But if the prophecy w T as 
not then fulfilled, it remains to be fulfilled; and 
it is equally certain that, when the many nations 
referred to shall all be converted, they are to be 
received into the Christian church by sprink- 
ling. 

The word here rendered sprinkle has been very 
variously interpreted, and it is not certain that 
it should be regarded as indicating the mode of 
water baptism. Yet to sprinkle is its usual and 
proper meaning, and it is so translated in Lev. 
4: 27; Isaiah 63: 3; 2 Kings 9: 33; and in 
numerous other passages in the Old Testament. 
If, however, it is rightly rendered sprinkle here, 



80 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

it no doubt had a primary reference to the in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit, which were to follow 
the sufferings of the Messiah, of which Chris- 
tian baptism is the emblem. So the Syriac 
version renders it, " Thus shall he purify— 
cleanse or make expiation for — many nations." 
The allusion is probably to the Levitical rite of 
sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice, or to the 
custom of sprinkling with water, as emblemati- 
cal of cleansing or purity. If used in the for- 
mer sense, it means that the Redeemer would 
make expiation for sin, and that his blood of 
purifying would be sprinkled on the nations. 
If used in the latter sense, as is most probable, 
then it means that he would purify them, as un- 
clean persons under the law were purified, by 
the sprinkling of w^ater. In either case, its 
signification is substantially the same; that is, 
that Christ would purify or cleanse many nations 
from their sins, and make them holy; and this 
is the very thing which was to be symbolized 
by w 7 ater baptism. It is reasonable to suppose, 
therefore, that there is an allusion in this pas- 
sage to the rite of baptism itself, as well as to 



PROrHECIES RESPECTING BAPTISM. 81 

the spiritual blessings of the gospel, which it 
represents.* 

Again, there are several prophecies which 
speak of the conversion of the Jews to Chris- 
tianity; and Paul asserts (Rom. 11: 17,) that 
they shall be graffed into their own Olive tree, 
(the true church,) from which they were broken 
off for their unbelief. Now when this shall 
occur, they will of course receive Christian 
baptism. But in what mode is their baptism to 
be administered? The prophet Ezekiel speaks 
largely on the restoration and conversion of the 
Jews; let him answer: (Ez. 36: 24-26,) "For 
I will take you from among the heathen, and 
gather you out of all countries," &c, u Then 
will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye 
shall be dean." If there is any thing taught in 
this passage concerning the mode of Christian 
baptism, sprinkling is the mode. 

It must be admitted, also, that the scriptures 
represent the baptism of the Spirit and the bap- 
tism with water as analogous. The one is the 

*See Barnes on Isaiah; also Cook & Towne on 
Baptism, p. 128. 



82 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

sign or emblem of the other. " I indeed baptize 
you with water unto repentance, but he that 
cometh after me is mightier than I, .... he shall 
baptize you w 7 ith the Holy Ghost and w 7 ith fire. 5 ' 
(Matt. 3: 11;) Now the baptism of the Spirit 
is always, in scripture, represented as the appli- 
cation of the Spirit to the believer, and not the 
believer to the Spirit. In Acts 1: 5, the Saviour 
is represented as having said to his disciples, 
" Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not 
many days hence." And Peter says, (Acts 2- 
16, 17,) that the scenes of the day of Pentecost 
were in fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, " And 
it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, 
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh." In Isa- 
iah (44 : 3,) it is said, u I will pour my Spirit upon 
thy seed and my blessing upon thine offspring." 
And (Acts 11: 15,) Peter says, in describing the 
effects of his preaching at the house of Cornelius, 
"The Holy Ghost foil on them, as on us at the 
beginning." Similar expressions are used in 
Isaiah 32: 15; 52: 15; Ezek. 39: 29, and many 
other passages, where the Spirit is represented 
as poured out upon the people, falling on them, 



PROPHECIES RESPECTING BAPTISM. 83 

and descending or distilling as the dew and the 
rain, and as showers that water the earth; to re- 
semble which, in water baptism, pouring or 
sprinkling, and not immersion, is manifestly the 
proper mode 



SECTION VTIL 

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MODE OF BAP- 
TISM, AS IT WAS ADMINISTERED BY THE APOSTLES. 
THE GREEK PARTICLES TRANSLATED INTO AND 
OUT OF. 

We come now to matters of fact and history, 
as to the mode in which the apostles actually 
did administer Christian baptism, in obedience 
to the Saviour's last command. 

1. The Baptism of Three Thousand on the Day 
of Pentecost 
The first account of the administration of 
baptism, after the ascension of the Saviour, is 
that recorded, (Acts 2: 41,) w T here it is said, 
" They that gladly received his w r ord, were bap- 
tized ; and the same day there w^ere added unto 
them about three thousand souls." We have 
already noticed the prophecy of Isaiah, (52: 15,) 
in fulfilment of w'hich we suppose the three 
thousand baptized on the day of Pentecost, must 
have been received into the Christian church by 
sprinkling. But setting aside this prophecy al- 



THE THREE THOUSAND. 85 

together, and considering- the events of the day 
of Pentecost historically, we are led to the same 
conclusion. 

The apostles had no place for the immersion 
of such a multitude as were then baptized. The 
Jordan was sixteen or eighteen miles distant; 
and at that season of the year, (June,) the brook 
Kidron was nearly or quite dry.* And if it was 
not dry, a common sewer poured all the filth of 
the northern portion of the city into it, render- 
ing it wholly unfit to be used as a place of im- 
mersion. Where, then, could the apostles have 
baptized the three thousand converts by immer- 
sion? These baptisms appear to have been 
performed on the spot, as well as on " the same 
day 55 of their conversion. Where v;as the wa- 
ter for their immersion? There w 7 as no river 
nor I:rook to which they could resort in so short 
a time, and there w T ere only two public pools or 
bathing places in Jerusalem, Bethesda and Si- 
loam. The latter w r as at the foot of Mount 

# This brook flowed along the east side of the city, 
was at best but a turbid and unimportant stream, and 
was always dry in summer. John informs us, its 
channel is diy except in winter." — John, § 19, p. 20. 



86 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

Moriah, three-quarters of a mile distant from 
where the apostles were assembled ; and we have 
no account of their marching off to it, with the 
thousands that heard them. 

Bethesda was near at hand on the north-east 
of the Temple, but it was used daily for the 
cleansing of sacrifices, and the blood and offals 
of the sacrifices and temple were washed into it, 
which, some have imagined, may have imparted 
to the water its healing virtue. At least it must 
have been unfit for a place of immersion. It 
was also in the hands of the priests, the avowed 
and mortal enemies of Christ and his disciples. 
They ridiculed the transactions of the day, and 
said, " these men are full of new T wine." They 
surely w r ould not have willingly given up the 
pool of Bethesda to the apostles, to be used as a 
place of Christian baptism. It is probable, also, 
that both Siloam and Bethesda were of insuffi- 
cient dimensions to allow the eleven apostles to 
use them at the same time for the purpose of 
immersion. 

The implacable opposition of the priests, and 
of the Jews in general, must also have prevented 
their making use of the washing lavers of the 



THE THREE THOUSAND. 87 

temple for this purpose. Nor can it be supposed 
that they were admitted to the bathing places in 
private houses for immersion in such vast num- 
bers. For, besides the inconvenience and im- 
probability of this, on many accounts, these 
bathing places were only to be found in the 
houses of the rich and honorable, very few of 
whom, at that time, were disposed to befriend 
the cause of Christ. Where, then, we ask again, 
could the apostles have immersed the three thou- 
sand on the day of Pentecost? 

But the difficulties of supposing that the con- 
verts on that day were all immersed, are still 
greater, if w T e consider that, after the close of 
Peter's sermon, there were but about five hours 
of the day remaining. Yet the account states 
that they were added to the church " the same 
day." But to have immersed them all in five 
hours, each of the apostles must have immersed 
more than fifty persons every hour, and more 
than five persons every six minutes! This, I 
need not say, would have been impossible. But 
if the apostles performed the rite of baptism by 
sprinkling, according to the prevalent mode of 
purifying among the Jews, the three thousand 



o8 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

were baptized in five hours with comparative 
ease. 

It is said indeed, that the seventy disciples 
(Luke 10: 1,) might have aided on this occasion, 
and thus rendered possible the baptism of three 
thousand by immersion, in the time specified. 
But it is no where said in scripture that the seventy 
were commissioned to baptize. It is certain 
that they w r ere not with the apostles at the time 
they received the Saviour's last command. Only 
the eleven were then present. (Mat. 28: 16.) 
And the account of the day of Pentecost, (Acts 
2:) gives us to understand very explicitly, that 
the seventy, if they were present at all, were 
there only as spectators, taking no prominent 
part in the meeting. It says that " Peter, stand- 
ing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice." 
Why are not the seventy mentioned, if they also 
took part in the services? The truth is, there is 
no evidence .or intimation, that they were there; 
much less that they took part in the baptism of 
the three thousand. Nor is there any degree of 
probability, that any others were authorized to 
take part in the administration of these baptisms 
Only ten days had intervened since the apostles 



THE THREE THOUSAND. 89 

had received their own commission from the 
Saviour; and we have no account of their having 
ordained any person to the work of the ministry 
during that time. On the contrary, we are 
assured that the Saviour had commanded them 
to suspend the exercise of all their apostolic func- 
tions, until the descent of the Holy Ghost, which 
took place on the day of Pentecost. (Luke 24: 
49; Acts 1 : 7, 8.) The difficulties, therefore, 
in the way of immersion, on this occasion, re- 
main insurmountable, and all the probabilities 
are in favor of the conclusion, that the three 
thousand were baptized by sprinkling. 

The next account of the administration of 
this ordinance, in the time of the apostles, is the 
baptism of Simon and many others, both men 
and women, by Philip the Evangelist, in Sama- 
ria. But there are no circumstances here which 
indicate the mode. It is simply said, "they 
were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." 
(Acts 8: 12, 13, 16.) 

2. The Baptism of the Eunuch and of Christ. 

The next occurrence of baptism was that of 
the Eunuch. (Acts 8 : 38, 39.) " And he com- 



90 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

manded the chariot to stand still, and they went 
down both into the water, both Philip and the 
Eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they 
were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the 
Lord caught away Philip, and the Eunuch saw 
him no more." There is one other passage, 
where a similar expression occurs; (Mat. 3: 16.) 
"And Jesus when he was baptized went up 
straightway" — that is immediately — " out of the 
water." 

It would be out of place here to go into a 
criticism of the Greek particles here rendered 
into and out of. They might with equal pro- 
priety be rendered to and from. They therefore 
teach us nothing as to the mode of baptism. 
They do not govern the meaning of the word 
baptizo, which is used in connexion with them, 
in these passages, but are themselves governed 
by the meaning which we attach to baptizo, in- 
dependent of them. If, for instance, I believe, 
from other evidence, that Christ and the Eunuch 
were baptized by immersion, I should say that 
they went into the water and came up out of it. 
If I believe they were baptized by sprinkling, I 
should say to and from instead of into and out of, 



THE EUNUCH. # 91 

unless I supposed that they stood in the water, 
which in those days of sandals, is perhaps quite 
probable. These particles, therefore, are of no 
use in settling the question, because their proper 
translation into English depends on the sense of 
the words they are used in connection with. 

To show how the translation of these parti- 
cles must vary according to the sense of the sub- 
ject, take the following examples, where the 
word sig (eis), here rendered into, is used. (Acts 
26: 14,) " And when we were all fallen (sj<;) to 
the earth," not into, &c. (John 11: 38,) " Jesus 
therefore cometh (slc) to the tomb" of Lazarus, 
not into the tomb. And (John 20: 4, 5,) " The 
other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first 
(eig) to the sepulchre. And he stooping down 
and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet 
went he not (ei$) in" Now if sis necessarily 
means into, we ought to read the passage thus; 
"the other disciple came first into the sepulchre," 
etc., " yet went he not into" it, which would be 
absurd and contradictory. So in a multitude of 
other instances, the translations of these little 
words vary with the sense of the connexion in 
which they are found. Carson, one of the most 



92 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

learned and yet one of the most strenuous of the 
Baptists, says in respect to Mat. 3: 16, " I admit 
chat the proper translation of aito (apo) is from, 
not out of, and that it would have its meaning 
fully verified, if they had only gone down to the 
edge of the water, (p. 200.) After all that has 
been said, therefore, as to the force of these 
words, into and out of, they prove nothing in 
respect to the mode of baptism, and we are left 
just where we were, to learn historically what 
was the fact as to the mode of these baptisms. 

As to the baptism of Christ in, or at the Jor- 
dan, it was performed by John, and we have said 
enough of John's baptism to show the strongest 
probability that it was administered by sprink- 
ling. There is no reason to doubt that in its 
mode, it was in entire accordance with the 
Jewish mode of purifying. It may be added 
that the Jews, when they baptized themselves 
in a running stream, as they often did, were 
accustomed to kneel down in it, and with 
their hands throw the water back over their 
heads, and thus sprinkle themselves. They 
do this still, as we are told by travellers. Here 
then is going down into the water, and coming 



THE EUNUCH. 93 

up out of the water, without immersion. And 
to this day, Jewish pilgrims are often seen to go 
down to the Jordan, where Christ was baptized, 
and while they kneel down in or by the river, 
the administrator takes up a little water, and 
baptizes them by applying it to their persons.* 
Thus they are baptized with water, not into 
water. Christ was probably baptized in this 
way, according to the Jewish usage, and went 
up straightway out of, or from the water. If 
he kneeled or stood in the river, he went into the 
water and came oat of it. If he kneeled by the 
side of the river, he went only to the w T ater and 
cameyrom it. But the baptism of Christ, though 
performed by John, probably in the ordinary 
mode of his baptism, did not, as we have said, 
(Sec. IV.) partake of the nature and design of 
John's baptism, as administered to others. It 
was a consecration to his priesthood; and the 
law (Ex. 29: 4,) required the following purifi- 
cation to be performed in such cases. " And 
Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring to the door 
of the tabernacle of the congregation, and shalt 
wash them with water." In Numbers 8: 7, we 

•"Kabbah Taken": by R. W. Landis, p. 39 



94 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

are told how this washing was to be performed. 
" Thus shalt thou do unto them to cleanse them; 
sprinkle water of purifying upon them." Here 
then is another evidence, in addition to the gene- 
ral mode of John's baptism, that Jesus was 
'baptized by sprinkling. 

In the case of the Eunuch, the circumstances 
are equally and perhaps still more conclusive, 
in favor of sprinkling as the mode of his bap- 
tism. Philip was in Samaria, and the angel of 
the Lord directed him to " go towards the south, 
unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem 
unto Gaza, which is desert." It w r as on the 
road in the desert, that he met the Eunuch, who 
was a Jew of Ethiopia, and had been up to Je- 
rusalem to worship. He was now returning, 
and having the Jewish scriptures with him, he 
was reading, as he sat in his chariot, in the pro- 
phecy of Isaiah.* And the place where he read 
w.as this: " He was led as a sheep to the slaugh- 
ter, and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so 
opened he not his mouth." Now turn to Isaiah 
53: 7, and you find the very passage which the 

# Acts 8 : 28. Esaias is the Greek spelling of the 
Hebrew name Isaiah, 



THE EUNUCH. 95 

Eunuch was reading. It is a part of the pro- 
phet's description of the Saviour. But the 
Eunuch understood it not. And so he said to 
Philip, " I pray thee, of whom speaketh the pro- 
phet this? of himself or of some other man?" And 
Philip " began at the same scripture, and preach- 
ed unto him Jesus/' He explained the prophecy. 
I And as they went on their way, they came to 
a certain water; and the Eunuch said, see here 
is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?" 
Now what was it w T hich led the Eunuch to 
think of being baptized just at this time? It 
was the preaching of Philip, opening to him the 
scriptures which he had been reading. And it 
is remarkable that just in that connexion, and 
only seven verses before, (Isaiah 52: 15,) is the 
prophecy, on which I have already remarked, as 
having been signally fulfilled on the day of Pen- 
tecost; " So shall he sprinkle many nations" 
This, no doubt, Philip had explained to him. 
So far, therefore, as the mode is concerned, it 
was sprinkling, and not immersion, which was 
in the mind of the Eunuch, when he asked for 
baptism. And, Jew, as he was, and accustomed 
to this mode of purification, what else could he 



96 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

have expected, or hoped, but to be baptized in 
this way? And the place and the circumstances 
indicate that he was thus baptized. 

The account says that they came to some wa- 
ter. The Greek word here translated certain, is 
<n (ti,) which does not indicate, as the English 
reader might imagine, a well-known fountain of 
water. It means simply some or any water, and 
has sometimes the sense of a diminutive. So 
here it might be rendered, with strict propriety, 
"they came to a little water;" and the Eunuch 
exclaimed, with evident emotion, when he saw 
it, Behold water ! This is the literal translation 
of the original, Behold water ! He does not say 
how much water. Nothing is said about a river. 
It was a desert, as we have seen, and the Eu- 
nuch was doubtless surprised and pleased to come 
upon any w r ater in such a place. Indeed it w 7 as 
in this vicinity, in the valley of Gerar, in which 
the city of Gaza stood, that Abraham and Isaac 
w T ere obliged to dig wells to get water for their 
flocks; and "the herdmen of Gerar did strive 
with Isaac's herdmen, saying, The water is 
ours." (Gen. 26 : 20.) It was not far from 
this place that Philip baptized the Eunuch; and 



THE EUNUCH. 9? 

the water was probably one of those " springs in 
the desert/' of which w T e read, (Gen. 26: 19.) 
Such a spring, boiling out of the ground, was 
not likely to afford a convenient place of immer- 
sion, and all the probabilities are against the 
supposition that the Eunuch was thus baptized. 
The presumption, then, that there was a river 
in the desert, in w T hich the Eunuch was immersed, 
is all a fancy. There is no intimation of any 
such thing. And the confidence placed in the 
English expressions into and out of, to prove 
that he must have been immersed, is without 
foundation. Besides, if these expressions prove 
any thing, they prove too much for our oppo- 
nents. For the account says, " They went down 
both into the water, both Philip and the Eunuch, 
and he baptized him," thus showing that their 
going into the w r ater was an action wholly distinct 
from the baptism. If they went into the water 
at all, they were in the water before the baptism 
was performed. Their going into the water, 
then, was no baptism. If it was, then Philip 
was baptized as much as the Eunuch. Thus all 
the circumstances of this baptism, which has 
been so much relied on and so often quoted in 
7 



98 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

confirmation of the views of immersionists, are 
found to support the opposite doctrine, and ren- 
der it highly probable, if not certain, that the 
Eunuch was baptized by sprinkling. 



SECTION IX. 

HISTORICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MODE OF BAI 
TISM, AS ADMINISTERED BY THE APOSTLES 
CONTINUED. 

3. The Baptism of the Apostle Paul. 

The baptism of Saul, (Paul) also, which is 
the next that occurs in the sacred history, (Acts 
9: 18 and 22: 16,) sustains the same conclusion, 
as to the mode of baptism practiced by the 
apostles. The account says, that he was sim- 
ply required to stand up, there where he was, 
and "he arose and was baptized." The or- 
dinance, as it appears, was performed on the 
spot where he stood, probably by water drawn 
from some " water-pot of stone," which stood 
there in the house, where he had been three days 
fasting. There is no intimation and no proba- 
bility that he was plunged into water. 

4. The Baptism of Cornelius and his Friends. 

In the case of Cornelius and his neighbors in 
Cesarea, (Acts 10: 47,) we are told that Peter 



100 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

preached at his house, and " many" were present 
to hear him. And it appears that they were all 
converted. " The Holy Ghost fell on them." 
Now to signify this falling of the Holy Ghost 
on them, our Baptist brethren say, they must 
have been immersed into water. But Peter in- 
timates no such thing. He does not appear to 
see any water there; and so he says, " Can any 
man forbid water, that these should not be bap- 
tized?" In plain English phrase, "Will some 
one be kind enough to bring in some water, that 
these may be baptized ?" Surely no Baptist 
minister would say, on such an occasion, " Can 
any man forbid water?" &c. If immersion had 
been the mode, Peter would have said, as a Bap- 
tist would now say, " Can any man forbid us to 
go out to the river or pond, that these may be 
immersed ?" But Peter said just what any Con- 
gregational, or Presbyterian, or Methodist min- 
ister, in the same circumstances, might say, with 
the strictest propriety. The language here used, 
therefore, implies that the baptism was performed 
by the application of water to the persons, and 
not the persons to the water. 



LYDIA AND HER HOUSEHOLD. 101 

5. The Baptism of Lydia and her Household. 
The case of Lydia and her household, (Acts 
16: 13-15,) is also in point. The apostles were 
met by the side of a river, near the city of Phi- 
lippi, where they were accustomed to resort for 
prayer, when Lydia attended to the things which 
were spoken of Paul, and was baptized. She 
was away from her house, and probably had no 
change of raiment with her, and yet she " w r as 
baptized and her household." There was a river 
there, it is true, in which they might have been 
immersed, if that had been the mode of baptism 
practiced by the apostles, but there was no other 
preparation for such a baptism. Surely the fact 
that they were " by a river side," does not prove 
that they baptized by immersion, especially when 
we are told that they went there, not for the con- 
venience of baptizing, but because it was a place 
" where prayer w T as wont to be made." This 
and the other circumstances indicate that though 
Lydia and her household may have been baptized 
with the water of the river, the ordinance was 
probably performed in the usual way, by sprink- 
ling. 



102 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

6. The Case of the Jailer and his Family. 

The baptism of the jailer and his family, (Acts 
16: 33, 34,) is still more conclusive in illustra- 
tion of the mode of baptism practiced by the 
apostles. All the circumstances detailed in this 
account, plainly show that immersion was wholly 
out of the question. Paul and Silas w T ere pri- 
soners,whom the jailer had been solemnly charged 
to "keep safely;" and for this purpose, and in 
faithfulness to his charge, he had " thrust them 
into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in 
the stocks." Suddenly, " at midnight," there 
was an earthquake, which shook the foundations 
of the prison, threw open the doors and loosed 
the bands of the prisoners. The jailer awoke in 
the greatest consternation and alarm. He was 
overwhelmed with the thought that tlie occur- 
rence would be his ruin. So strong were his 
feelings of obligation to keep safely those who 
had been committed to his charge, that when he 
saw the prison doors all open, and supposed the 
prisoners were fled, " he drew out his sword and 
would have killed himself." It is not possible, 
therefore, to suppose, as some Baptists have im- 



THE JAILER AND ALL HIS. 103 

agined, that the jailer went out in the night, with 
the prisoners, to be baptized of them. It would 
have been a breach of his fidelity, an unjustifiable 
hazarding of the escape of the prisoners, which 
might have forfeited his life to the laws. And 
vou see how sensitive he was on this point. 

Nor was this necessary. The jailer, it appears, 
by some means, had water at hand for the wash- 
ing of their stripes. A little of the same water 
would serve them for the purpose of his baptism. 
And more than all this, Paul himself virtually 
affirms that they did not go out during the night. 
As soon as the morning came, the magistrates 
sent to the jailer to " let those men go." But 
Paul said, " They have beaten us openly uncon- 
demned, being Romans, and have cast us into 
prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? 
Nay, verily; but let them come themselves and 
fetch us out." Surely, this refusal, so indicative 
of conscious integrity and uprightness, would 
have been made with a poor grace indeed, and 
without the least propriety, if the apostles had 
already been out during the night " privily" in 
search of a river or pond, in which to immerse 
the keeper of the prison and his family. We 



104 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

must therefore take this account just as it stands 
in the Bible, and believe that the jailer "took 
them the same hour of the night, and washed 
their stripes/' there in the jail, where they were, 
" and was baptized, he and all his straightway." 

But it is said that he "brought them out;" 
that is, as I understand it, he brought them out 
from " the inner prison," into which he had 
thrust them for special safety. So, when he is 
said to have " brought them into his house," it 
was only into another apartment of the same 
building, where he could more conveniently " set 
meat before them." This, however, was after 
he had " washed their stripes, and was baptized, 
he and all his." All this was done in the pri- 
son proper, before he " brought them into his 
house." They then returned to the prison and 
remained there, under charge of the keeper, un- 
til the next day, when, after Paul's refusal to go 
out, the magistrates " came and besought them, 
and brought them out." 

The jailer " and all his," therefore, were bap- 
tized in the prison. And there is not the slight- 
est proof that they were plunged into water 
there, but strong presumptive evidence that this 



TWO OTHER INSTANCES. 105 

would have been impracticable. There is no 
intimation of the presence of a bath, suited to 
the performance of immersion; and a jail, in 
those days of cruelty, was far less likely to be 
furnished with such accommodations, than the 
dwellings of luxury and wealth. Indeed, there 
is no probability that these persons could have 
been immersed in the prison, at that dead hour 
of the night; but every circumstance to indicate 
that water was brought in and applied to them 
by sprinkling. 

7. Two other Instances. 

There are only two other instances of Daptism 
performed by the apostles, as mentioned in the 
history of their acts. The first is that of the 
baptism of a number of the Corinthians by Paul, 
(Acts 18 : 7, 8.) The second is that of Paul's 
baptizing certain disciples at Ephesus, who had 
been before baptized unto John's baptism, (Acts 
19: 1-5.) But there are no circumstances, in 
these cases, which indicate the mode of admin- 
istration.* We are left, therefore, to infer that 

# Where were all these disciples, when they were 
thus met, and instructed, and baptized by Paul ? 



106 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

these baptisms were performed in the way so 
strongly indicated in all the other cases, as the 
only mode in which baptism was administered 
by the apostles. 

Were they certainly near to some pond or creek ? " If 
so, how singular it is, that converts, in these and other 
cases, could not be found, unless, by a remarkable 
coincidence, a large body of water was near! If all 
the ponds and creeks which exist in the imagination, 
of immersionists who interpret the Acts of the 
Apostles, had really watered Judea, then, it may be 
proved by calculation, that there was water enough to 
have turned the whole land into a sea." — Kurtz, p. 
238, 



SECTION X. 

RECAPITULATION. FIGURATIVE EXPRESSIONS CON- 
CERNING SPIRITUAL BAPTISM. CONCLUSION OF 
THE ARGUMENT. 

We have now considered the Divine warrant 
for baptism, the meaning of the word baptize, and 
of the Greek particles, translated into and out of, 
in connection with it. We have illustrated the 
meaning of this word by the Jewish ordinances 
and usages, w T hich the apostles call baptisms ; 
have showed that the very idea of cleansing* or 
purifying by water, by blood or by Spirit, is the 
application of the purifying agent or element to 
the person, and not the person to the element; 
have considered John's baptism with water, and 
those prophecies which are supposed to intimate, 
however obscurely, the mode of Christian bap- 
tism; and we have taken up and considered, in 
their order, all the instances of baptism described 
in the New Testament, as performed by the 
apostles. And I trust, it is now plainly seen by 
the candid reader, that there is nothing to be 



108 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

found either in the meaning of the words used 
to designate baptism, or in the circumstances 
attending its administration, to favor the idea of 
immersion, as the mode of baptism, practiced by 
the apostles. On the other hand, both the words 
and the circumstances, respecting this subject, 
do greatly favor the mode of sprinkling ; so 
much so indeed, as to constitute demonstrative 
proof that this is the only mode of baptism, as a 
religious ordinance, made known to us in the 
Scriptures. It is the only mode prescribed. 

There are other passages, in the epistles, 
where water baptism is spoken of, but nothing 
said to indicate the mode. There is a passage, 
however, (1 Cor. 15: 29,) w^hich may have a 
bearing on this subject. " Else what shall they 
do, who are baptized for/ 9 or over, (iWsp) " the 
dead, if the dead rise not at all?" The signifi- 
cation of this passage is somewhat obscure. 
" Tertullian, Theophilact and Epiphanius inform 
us that it was the custom of the Marcionites and 
Corinthians, if a catechumen died before his bap- 
tism, to baptize some other in his stead, as the 
apostle here seems to intimate. And as the early 
Christians regarded with much veneration the 



BURIED IN BAPTISM 109 

graves of martyrs, and occasionally held assem- 
blies on the spot, it is supposed, that in these 
vicarious baptisms, the rite was performed over 
their graves. This would be the obvious mean- 
ing of the apostle, if the word, virsp, in this pas- 
sage signifies over, as it certainly often does in 
Greek writers. But could the baptisms over the 
graves of martyrs be performed by immersion? 
Were their graves dug at the bottoms of rivers'?" 
-Schmucker's Pop. TheoL, p. 222. 

There are also expressions concerning spiritual 
baptism, which, though they have really no bear- 
ing on the subject, have been strangely and 
strenuously pressed into this controversy con- 
cerning the mode. 

Paul says, (Rom. 6 : 3, 4,) " Know ye not that 
so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ 
were baptized into his death. Therefore we are 
buried with him by baptism into death, that like 
as Christ was raised up from the dead, by the 
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk 
in newness of life." And in Colossians, (2: 12,) 
similar expressions occur, " buried with him in 
baptism," etc. 

Most Baptist writers insist on it that these 



110 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

passages have reference to the mode of watei 
baptism,* and are intended to represent it as re 
sembling the burial and resurrection of Christ 
But there are several considerations which show 
that there is no allusion, in these passages, tc 
the mode of water baptism- The resurrection 
spoken of is plainly spiritual. It is to " new 
ness of life. 55 Consequently being " buried 5 ' 
with Christ must be spiritual. It is simply be- 
ing " dead to sin, 55 that, as the apostle himself 
explains it, we might not " live any longer 
therein; 55 and there is no more allusion to the 
mode of external baptism in these expressions, 
than there is in the figures of 'planting and cru- 
cifixion, which the apostle uses in the same con- 
nexion, to illustrate his meaning. And really 
there is no resemblance between the mode of 
baptism by immersion and the interment of the 
dead. 

Dead bodies are not plunged into the earth. 

* There are some exceptions to this statement. Dr. 
Judson, the Baptist missionary, and Robinson, the 
Baptist historian, both admit that these passages are 
misapplied when used as evidence of the mode of 
baptism. 



BURIED IN BAPTISM. Ill 

Nor is the mode of burying the dead alike among 
all nations. The Romans in Paul's time, used to 
burn the body. Some nations hang it up till 
the flesh decays, and others deposite it in a vault. 
So Christ was not buried, but laid in a tomb, 
hewn out of a rock, probably above ground. It 
is impossible, therefore, that the apostle could 
have had reference to the mode of baptism. He 
was speaking only of spiritual baptism, by w T hich 
we become partakers of Christ's death, or the 
benefits of it. So he says in another place, with- 
out any reference to external baptism, " Ye are 
dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." 
Besides other objections to explaining Col. 2: 
12, as teaching immersion, there is one on the 
very face of the text, which is insuperable. The 
person who is plunged in water rises by the 
muscular strength of the man w T ho plunges him, 
or at least by physical power. But Paul here 
says, " Ye are risen with him, (Christ) through 
the faith of the operation of God " And can it 
be that this means simply a resurrection from 
the water of baptism, which our Baptist brethren 
without the least propriety, or scripture warrant, 
denominate a watery grave?" 



112 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

The water of baptism is not a grave, nor the 
emblem of a grave. In the Jewish ceremo- 
nies, which the apostle calls baptisms, it was 
always an emblem, or symbol of purification, 
never of death or interment. So Christian bap- 
tism is a symbol of moral purity, of being cleansed 
from sin, and renovated by the influences of the 
Holy Spirit. It signifies that we are both dead 
and risen, at the same time; dead to sin, but 
alive unto holiness. Such is the signification of 
the figures here used by the apostle. They have 
nothing to do with the place of dead men's bones, 
w T ith physical decomposition or natural corrup- 
tion, but signify the very opposite of all these — 
moral purity and spiritual life. " For he that is 
dead, [by c baptism into death,'] is freed from 
sin." (Rom. 6: 7.) 

What then shall we say to these things 1 For 
in conducting this argument, we have been con- 
cerned, not with the Greek classics, nor with 
human imaginings and the authority of names, 
but with things and facts, as they are presented 
in the book of God. We have examined all the 
important passages in the New Testament, which 
have a bearing upon the point at issue, and in 



CONCLUSON. 113 

none of them have we discovered any thing to 
favor immersion, as the scriptural mode of Chris- 
tian baptism; not even a word, or incidental re- 
mark, much less a fact that so much as seems to 
require immersion. On the contrary the teach- 
ings of the Bible preponderate overwhelmingly 
on the side of baptism by sprinkling, and force 
upon us the belief that this was the mode in 
which baptism was administered by the apos 
ties, in obedience to the Saviour's command 

8 



SECTION XI. 

ORIGIN OF THE MODE OF BAPTISM BY IMMERSION. 
THE BIBLE DOES NOT MAKE THE MODE ESSENTIAL, 
YET IT IS IMPORTANT. A CONCESSION. THE 
GRAND ERROR OF THE BAPTISTS. 

How then, it may be asked, did the practice 
of baptism by immersion come into use among 
the early Christian churches? For there is 
evidence sufficient to show that, as early as the 
second century, immersion was generally prac- 
ticed, though it was not then claimed by any as 
the exclusive mode. Sprinkling never ceased to 
be held as valid baptism, and immersion, though 
practiced in the early ages, was never made an 
indispensable condition of communion by any 
sect, until the rise of the Anabaptists in the six- 
teenth century. Cyprian, who was constituted 
Bishop of Carthage, in 248, speaking of some 
who were baptized by sprinkling, quotes Ezek 
36:25, in justification of the practice, " I will 
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be 
•clean," and then adds, " Hence it appears that 



ORIGIN OF IMMERSION. 115 

sprinkling is of equal validity with the salutary 
bath." Origen and Tertullian both lived within 
one hundred years of the apostolic age. They 
too testify to the practice and validity of bap- 
tism by affusion or sprinkling, and recommend it 
ia cases, where, on account of sickness or other 
causes, immersion was inconvenient or danger- 
ous. The same may be said of Clemens Alex- 
andrinus and Ireneus, the first of whom lived 
within fifty years of the apostles, and the latter 
was born about the time of the decease of the 
venerable and beloved John.* But if the validity 
of baptism by sprinkling w T as still acknowledged, 
how came the practice of the rite in this form 
to be so generally given up in the early centu- 
ries, and immersion to be substituted in its place? 
On this subject I remark that it is impossible 
to trace all the steps of the rapid changes which 
so soon resulted in the ruinous corruptions of the 
Romish church. Even in the apostles' days, 
there sprang up crude opinions and extravagant 
practices, in the bosom of the church. The 
Lord's Supper was so perverted by the church 

# See authorities quoted by Prof. Stuart, Bib. Repos., 
1833. 



116 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

in Corinth, that the apostle sharply rebukes them 
(1 Cor. 11:) for their surfeiting and drunkenness. 
And so prone were they to abuse the institutions 
of the gospel, that in the first chapter of the 
same epistle, Paul gives utterance to this strange 
declaration: "I thank God that I baptized none 
of you, but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should 
say that I baptized in mine own name." 

But in the second and third centuries we find 
the state of things far more deplorable. Not 
only had the simple scriptural mode of baptism 
become changed, but monstrous abuses of it were 
introduced, as exorcism, unction, the giving of 
salt and milk to the candidate, clothing him in 
a snow-white robe, and crowning him w 7 ith 
evergreen. It was in these ages that the imagi- 
nation became prevalent, that there was a saving 
virtue in the very water of baptism. It was 
therefore concluded that the more water the bet- 
ter, and that it should be applied to the whole 
body, that the regeneration might be complete. 

Our Baptist brethren are fond of claiming this 
history of the early practice of Christians, as 
wholly in their favor. But if they take it as 
authority in respect to immersion, they ought to 



ORIGIN OF IMMERSION. 117 

take the other things that I have named along 
with it. For while it is abundantly proved that 
immersion was now generally practiced, it is no 
less certain that it was the general practice 
equally early to immerse both infants and adults, 
males and females, in a state of entire nudity, 
because it was feared that their garments might 
prevent the water from reaching every part of 
the body, and thus the regeneration w T ould be 
imperfect. " There is no historical fact," says 
Robinson, a Baptist historian, "There is no 
historical fact better authenticated than this." 

It was in this way, as history would seem to 
indicate, that baptism by immersion came into 
use. It did not originate in the supposed fact, 
that the early Christian fathers understood the 
w r ord baptizo to mean immerse. It has been 
amply proved, that the simple idea which the} 
attached to the word baptism, was that of puri- 
fication, and so they used these words, (baptize 
and purify,) indifferently, the one for the other, 
without any regard to the mode of purification. 
This mode of baptism, therefore, was introduced, 
not from any supposed scripture authority, as to 
the mode, but from fanciful interpretations of 



118 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

certain passages, and from other considerations 
connected with their ideas of what the ordinance, 
in this form, might be adapted to signify. Three 
causes are assigned by Pres. Beecher, which are 
sufficient to account for the early practice of 
immersion: 1. Oriental usages and the habits 
of warmer regions. 2. A false interpretation 
of Rom. 6: 3, 4; Col. 2: 12; and 3. A very early 
habit of ascribing peculiar virtue to external 
forms.* 

Baptism by immersion, then, sprang up in the 
midst of other changes, which had no warrant 
in scripture, and some of which were monstrous 
corruptions of the original institutions of Chris- 
tianity. Such is the tendency of even converted 
men, when they leave their hold on the Bible, 
and yield themselves up to the impulses and vain 
imaginings of the times in which they live, 
rapidly to fall into error and irregularity, and to 
become the originators of measures, and modes, 
and usages, which ever after disturb the order 
and mar the glory of Christ's house. For when 
once introduced, these modes and usages are apt 

* Am. Bib. Repos., 1841. 



NOT ESSENTIAL. 119 

to be held with a tenacity proportioned to the 
weakness of the evidence by which they are at- 
tempted to be justified. 

But I turn away from this scene of human 
error and confusion. The Bible, and NOTHING 
BUT THE BIBLE, is the creed of Protestants; 
and here it is that we find our Divine warrant 
for baptism, and that, too, as we think, in the 
mode in which it is practiced among ourselves. 
Yet I readily concede that we have not, in the 
Bible, an explicit command enjoining this mode 
of baptism, to the exclusion of other modes. 
The obligation of baptism with w 7 ater, in some 
form, to be administered with solemnity and de- 
cency, and in the use of the prescribed words, is 
enjoined by a " Thus saith the Lord." But the 
precise mode of applying the water was no doubt 
designedly left undefined, and we are at liberty, 
within the bounds of decency and order, to vary 
the mode, as occasions may require; but we are 
by no means at liberty to break the communion 
of the church, on the ground of any difference of 
opinion or of practice, in respect to the mere 
external form of administering a Christian sa- 
crament. 



120 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

J 

^ We admit, indeed, that even immersion, though 
supported by no scripture authority, and though 
the grounds of its being preferred, as a mode of 
baptism, be erroneous interpretations of scrip- 
ture, and false reasonings, may yet be so admin- 
istered and received, as to be an allowable mode. 
Yet it is not the scriptural mode; and if we are 
asked to regard immersion as essential to bap- 
tism, and to administer or receive it under that 
condition, in the fear of God we must not sub- 
mit to it. They who make this demand, bind 
that which Christ has left free; and we ought 
to " give place by subjection, no, not for an 
hour," (Gal. 2: 5,) but to stand fast in the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made us free. We impose 
no such bond upon our brethren as a condition 
of communion, even though the mode which we 
practice is amply proved to be the mode of the 
apostles. Yet the mode of baptism is not bap- 
tism, and we have no right to impose it as such. 
It is the thing, and not the form, which is com- 
manded. 

Just so it is w T ith the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. We are simply commanded to take 
bread, &c. But as to the precise mode of doing 






NOT ESSENTIAL. l'^x 

this, we are not particularly instructed. And a^ : 
to apostolic usage, in this case, both we and 
our Baptist brethren know full well, that in 
many things we have departed from the mode in 
which the apostles observed this sacrament. 
f hey met in the night for this purpose; not on 
the Lord's day, but on Thursday; not in a house 
of public worship, but in an upper chamber of a 
vrivate dwelling; they used unleavened bread 
and the pure juice of the grape, and received the 
supper, not standing, nor sitting, nor kneeling, 
but in a recumbent posture, half sitting and half 
lying* 

No intelligent Christian will maintain, that r 
strict adherence to all these particulars is neces- 
sary to the valid administration of the Lord's 
Supper. There is not a branch of Christ's 
church on earth, in which all these particulars 
are observed. By common consent, all Chris- 
tians, Baptists as well as others, concede that 
these things are not essential, and that the prac- 
tice of even the apostles does not bind us to them. 
Surely, then, our Baptist brethren ought to aban-* 

# See Miller ou Baptism. 



122 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

don the ground they have assumed as to baptism, 
or else to take the same position in respect to 
the other sacrament. 

But it is in vain for any one to contend that 
the mode of applying the water in baptism is 
explicitly defined in scripture. Certainly we 
have said enough to show, that if any mode can 
claim a Divine warrant, it is that w r hich we 
practice. Sprinkling certainly was very defi- 
nitely prescribed in the Old Testament, as the 
mode, and the only mode, of performing the rite 
which " sanctified to the purifying of the flesh." 
And this, as we have seen, (Sec. III.) was a bap- 
tism. It was a baptism, too, in common use in 
the time of our Saviour and his apostles; and, 
inwoven as it was, in their daily thoughts and 
conversation, it must have been embraced, with 
more or less distinctness in the meaning of our 
Saviour's command, when he instituted the ordi- 
nance of Christian baptism. Yet, as a mode, it 
is only implied in this command, and not expli- 
citly enjoined. And there is room, perhaps, for 
some honest differences of opinion respecting it. 
Such differences, as a matter of fact, do exist 
among learned and pious men, and ought to be 



A CONCESSION. 123 

treated with candor and forbearance, however 
much they are to be deplored. 

The mode of baptism, therefore, is not essen- 
tial. There may be in this, as in other things, 
" diversities of administration, but the same spi- 
rit." Sprinkling, to my own mind, and I trust 
now, to the mind of the reader, is the most 
scriptural. It appears, indeed, to be the only 
mode any where prescribed or made known in 
the scriptures, and the only mode illustrated in 
the practice of John the Baptist and the apostles. 
It is also more appropriate to the spiritual bless- 
ings intended to be represented by baptism, and 
better adapted, than any other mode, to the de- 
signed universal spread of the Christian religion 
in all climates, and among all the nations. 

I may add the fact, that our Baptist brethren 
constantly complain of the common trans- 
lation of the Bible, for retaining the words 
baptize and baptism, untranslated. They claim 
that these words ought to be rendered im- 
merse and immersion. They were actually 
so directed to be read in one of the first 
issues of the New Testament prepared for circu- 
lation by the Baptist Bible Society; and this 



124 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

principle is carried out in all the translations 
circulated by that society in heathen languages. 
They eschew the very words, baptize and baptism 
in all their translations. I name this fact as a 
concession, perfectly satisfactory, on the part of 
our Baptist brethren, that they do not regard our 
present translation of the Bible— retaining the 
above words to designate the ordinance in ques- 
tion — as justifying or even favoring immersion, 
as its proper mode. 

We, then, are the Baptists, and they the 7m- 
mersionists. We claim the very words of the 
original scriptures as furnishing the only accu- 
rate designation of the sacrament under conside- 
ration. They substitute another word, because 
it indicates a particular mode, which the original 
word, baptize, as it is used by Christ and his 
apostles, confessedly does not indicate. Surely 
we are the Baptists; and if either party, in this 
dispute, has a right to demand, from all others, 
conformity to its own views, it is the party which 
plants itself on the meaning of the original lan- 
guage of scripture, as used and understood by 
inspired men, and by the Saviour himself. Yet 
we claim no such conformity from our brethren, 



IMPORTANT. 125 

as the condition of our free and open com- 
munion. 

With us, baptism is " not the putting away of 
the filth of the flesh;" (1 Pet. 3: 21.) Nor does 
it consist in any precise and exclusive mode of 
applying water, as a symbol of the baptism of 
the Spirit. But it is "the answer of a good 
conscience towards God," by any application of 
water in this symbolical way. 

The mode of baptism, then, we repeat, is not 
essential. It is not of the essence of Christianity, 
which stands not, as the Jewish ritual service 
did, " in meats and drinks and diverse baptisms," 
not in outward forms and modes of worship, but 
" in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost." " For in Christ Jesus neither circum- 
cision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, 
but faith which worketh by love." 

Yet if we regard the spirit as well as the letter 
of our Saviour's command, the very mode of 
baptism, though not essential, is still important. 
We ought surely to practice that mode which 
best accords with the spirit of the Christian dis- 
pensation, and see to it that we impose no un- 
necessary burdens upon the followers of Christ; 



126 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

" which things have indeed a show of wisdom 
in will-worship, and humility, and neglecting of 
the body; not in any honor to the purifying of 
the flesh/' (Col. 2: 23.) 

We ought also to adopt the mode which is 
lound in experience to be practicable, in all ell 
mates, and in all the circumstances of human 
beings, to whom we are commanded to preach 
the gospel, every one of whom, in sickness or in 
health, is required to believe and be baptized 
It must be admitted that there are certain con 
ditions in which baptism by immersion could no* 
be practiced without the greatest danger to health 
and to life.* And the Son of man is not come to 

* If immersion were the only baptism, then God 
would require of all believers what some believers are 
unable to perform. Persons in delicate health, or 
converted in sickness, and near to death, could not, o* 
that supposition, profess Christ before men, in the only 
appointed way ; and the inhabitants of high latitudes 
where winter is perpetual, would be excluded from 
baptism almost of necessity, to say nothing of the dif 
faculties and embarrassments which often attend the 
administration of this ordinance by immersion, ever 
n milder climates. 

The following, which I take from a little work, en- 



IMMERSION IMPRACTICABLE. 127 

destroy men's lives, but to save them." (Luke 
9: 56.) 

Finally, it is especially important that we 
should entertain right principles on this subject, 

titled "Immersion not Christian Baptism" first pub- 
lished in the " New England Puritan" may stand in 
the place of a thousand similar facts. 

" A young man was propounded for admission to 
one of our churches. But he had been educated to 
regard immersion as the only mode of baptism. 
Nearly all his relatives were of that belief. The 
question was naturally proposed, why he should leave 
the sect in which he had received all his early im 
pressions, and join a pasdobaptist church ? He simply 
replied, " My mother believed in immersion; therefore 1 
do not" On being questioned in respect to this strange 
reason, he responded to the clergyman who raised the 
question, and said, 'You knew my mother — do you 
believe she was a Christian ?' ' I do not question her 
piety,' was the reply ; ' I believe she is now in heaven.' 
'Well, sir,' said the young man, 'years before my 
mother's death, she hoped she was a Christian. She 
desired to profess Christ before men, to join the peo- 
ple of God, and meet the Saviour at his table. She 
was in feeble health. Her physician told her that 
immersion would cost her her life. But her physician 
was not a friend to immersion, and it was thought 
that his views might influence his judgment. A phy- 



128 MODE OF BAPTISM. 

and not make that essential, in respect to which 
Christ has left us free. The grand error of out- 
Baptist brethren, after all, is this: not that they 
prefer one mode to another; nor that they have 
adopted the most impracticable and onerous of 
all modes, which, on that account, they call the 
" cross of Christ" when, in fact, it is only a 
cross of their own making; nor that they prac- 
tice a mode for which there is no direct authori- 
ty in the scriptures — but it is that they make the 

MODE THE ESSENTIAL THING IN BAPTISM, without 

which they recognize no one as having made a 
credible profession of religion, or as entitled to 
the privileges of the visible church. They ac~ 

sician was sent for whose view r s of baptism harmon- 
ized with my mother's. His opinion was expressed 
in these words : ' If you go into the water, you must die.' 
This settled the case. To profess and obey Christ 
was impossible, as immersion alone was baptism to 
my mother. And thus, for a long and dark period, 
she walked alone, till God called her to his table above. 
I do not believe that such a mode belongs to the gos- 
pel, and I choose to unite myself to a church in which 
the feeble, the decrepid, the infirm, the sick and the 
dying, if their hearts are right, may find access below 
to the fold of Christ."' 



IMMERSION IMPRACTICABLE. 129 

cordingly exclude from their communion the 
great body of the faithful among men, and stand 
aloof from the family of believers, who equally 
with themselves, though in a different mode, 
have been baptized " in the name of the Father^ 

AND OF THE SoN, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST." We 

have not so learned Christ. 



PART II. 

THE SCRIPTURE WARRANT FOR INFANT 
BAPTISM. 



SECTION I. 

THE MEANING OF OUR SAVIOUR'S COMMAND, (MATr 
28: 19,) IN RESPECT TO THE SUBJECTS OF BAP- 
TISM PROSELYTE BAPTISM. 

Our Baptist brethren contend that the condi- 
tions of baptism, as inculcated in the New Tes- 
tament, are such that it cannot be lawfully ad- 
ministered to any but to adult believers. On the 
other hand, the great mass of professing Chris- 
tians have in all ages maintained, and do now 
hold, that believers are entitled to this ordinance 
both for themselves and their children.* 

*Of the 3,000,000, who profess religion in the United 
States, more than three-quarters consider infant bap- 
tism as valid. In Scotland, nineteen-twentieths of the 
people practice infant baptism, and, of all the religious 
denominations of England and Wales, thirteen-four- 



132 INFANT BAPTISM. 

The doctrine of Infant Baptism, then, is the 
subject of our present discussion. This, I think 
is taught in our Saviour's last command, consid- 
ered in connexion with the inspired history of 
the church, and other circumstances, which must 
have controlled its meaning in the minds of the 
apostles. If it is thus taught, it has its founda- 
tion in the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself, being the chief corner-stone; and I may 
hope, by the blessing of God, so to present the 
grounds on which this doctrine rests, as to cor- 
rect the views of many who have doubts on the 
subject, and to confirm the faith of others in 
those covenant relations, by which it is made the 
duty of believing parents to dedicate their chil- 

tcenths do the same. It is also practiced almost uni- 
versally in all the other Protestant churches of Europe, 
and by the Waldenses, the Armenians, and the Syrian 
Christians, and the whole of the Roman and Greek 
churches. 

We are right then, in saying, that the great mass of 
professing Christians do now hold, that believers are 
entitled to this ordinance both for themselves and 
their children. And they claim scripture authority 
for this belief. On what grounds, and with how 
much reason, we have yet to consider. 



BAPTlSxM OF PROSELYTES. 133 

dren to God in baptism, and the right of minis- 
ters to administer this ordinance to the infant 
offspring of believers. 

It will not be doubted that the last command 
of our Saviour is applicable to all regularly con- 
stituted ministers of the gospel in all ages. 
Hence the promise appended to it; "Lo! I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the 
world." (Matt. 28:20.) 

The command, then, to those who preach the 
gospel, is to teach all nations. The word here 
rendered teach, properly signifies to disciple, or 
to proselyte. This is admitted. The ablest 
scholars bear harmonious testimony to this sig- 
nification of the word. The meaning of the 
command, therefore, as it was understood by the 
apostles, is that all those who should be con- 
verted under their ministry, all w T hom they should 
disciple or proselyte, to the faith of the gospel, 
were to be baptized. And this meaning of the 
word proselyte or disciple, as it was then com- 
monly used, must have guided their perception 
of the meaning of the command. 

The matter of proselyting persons from the 
world, to the faith of the true church, was by no 



134 INFANT BAPTISM. 

means new, in the time of our Saviour. Nor 
was it peculiar to the Christian dispensation. 
It was a matter of frequent occurrence, and was 
familiar to Christ and his disciples in the Jewish 
church. Persons of other nations, by conquest 
or otherwise, were often added to the Jewish 
community, and were admitted to the privileges 
of the Hebrew church on profession of their 
faith. But, as the Jews considered the Gentiles 
unclean and impure, it was natural for them, 
when such persons were converted to their faith, 
to insist on their being ceremonially purified, by 
the application of water. Hence such proselytes 
were not only subjected to the Jewish rite of 
circumcision, but the custom had sprung up of 
also baptizing them. And this custom had be- 
come universal in such cases. 

The baptism of proselytes is not any where 
commanded in the Old Testament. Nor is it 
possible to determine at w T hat time the custom 
was introduced. But there is probable evidence 
that, long before the coming of Christ, it was 
common among the Jews to baptize their con- 
verts from the Gentiles. And the rite of bap- 
tism in these cases was coextensive with that ol 



BAPTISM OF PROSELYTES. 135 

circumcision. As the children of these converts 
were required to be circumcised, so it was the 
uniform custom to subject them to baptism also.* 

* As our Baptist brethren have labored hard to 
raise doubts as to the prevalence of the Jewish prose- 
Jyte baptism previous to the time of Christ, it may be 
proper to refer to a few of the testimonies on which 
it rests, as a historical fact. 

Maimonides, a Jew and the great interpreter of the 
Jewish law, says, " Israel was admitted into covenant 
by three things, viz. : by circumcision, baptism and 
sacrifice. Baptism was hi the wilderness before the 
giving of the law." Agahi, he says, "Abundance of 
proselytes were made in the days of David and Solo- 
mon before private men ; and the great Sanhedrim 
was full of care about this business ; for they would 
not cast them out of the church, because they were 
baptized. And again, " Whenever any heathen will 
take the yoke of the law upon him, circumcision, bap- 
tism and a voluntary oblation are required. # # # That 
was a common axiom, no man is a proselyte until he 
be circumcised and baptized. 

Calmet, in his Dictionary (Art. Proselytes,) says, 
" The Jews require three things to a complete prose- 
lyte ; baptism, circumcision and sacrifice ; but for wo- 
men only baptism and sacrifice." 

Dr. Wall says of proselytes to the Jewish religion, 
" They were all baptized, males and females, adults 



136 INFANT BAPTISM. 

The baptism of children, then, as is highly- 
probable, was common among the Jews, when 
the Saviour's command was given, and had been 
for a long time. It was just as much a matter 
of course to baptize the children of the prose- 
lytes to Judaism as it was to baptize the pro- 
selytes themselves. This was known to our 
Saviour and his disciples, and to all among the 
Jews, as the prevalent custom, a custom too 

and infants. This was their constant practice, from 
the time of Moses to that of our Saviour, and from 
that period to the present day." But the testimonies 
are too numerous to be quoted or even referred to in 
this note. See Kurtz on Baptism, and other works, 
in which this historical fact appears to be satisfacto- 
rily proved. 

Professor Stuart thinks the probabilities against the 
practice of proselyte baptism in the time of our 
Saviour. He admits however that " the impression 
has become widely extended in the Christian church, 
that such was the fact," and that a majority of the 
older writers have adopted the opinion of Selden, 
Lightfoot, Dantz, Buxtorf, Schoothgen, Wetstein and 
others, that the baptism of proselytes was common 
when John the Baptist made his appearance as a 
public teacher." (Bib. Repos., Vol. 3, pp. 342, 355.) 






BAPTISM OF PROSELYTES. 137 

tfhich is continued to the present day in all 
Fewish synagogues. 

These were the circumstances in which our 
Saviour commanded his disciples to 'proselyte 
and baptize all nations. Who then were to be 
the subjects of this baptism? Was it intended 
to be restricted to adults only? Why then did 
not the Saviour prohibit the baptism of infants, 
when he gave this general command? And in 
the absence of any restriction, must not the dis- 
ciples have understood him to mean the baptism, 
which both he and they had been accustomed to 
observe among the Jews, viz. : the baptism of 
children with their parents ? They knew of no 
other law of baptism, in the case of proselytes 
to a new form of religion, but that which re- 
quired its administration both to the proselyte 
and his children. Such a thing as a believing 
parent presenting himself for baptism, and with- 
holding his children, had not been heard of, ex- 
cepting, perhaps, in the case of John's baptism, 
in which it is not known that children were 
embraced. 

John's baptism, however, was peculiar and 
temporary. It was simply a preparatory rite, of 



138 INFANT BAPTISM. 

short continuance. It was not administered in 
the name of Christ, and some whom John had 
baptized, we are told, had " not so much as heard 
whether there be any Holy Ghost" (Acts 19: 
2.) It is certain also that the baptism of John 
had not become a custom. It was administered 
only by himself. And, besides, it had nothing 
to do with the reception of new proselytes or 
disciples, into the chuch. It was the baptism 
of repentance, administered to the back-slidden 
Jew T s indiscriminately, to prepare them for the 
reception of the Redeemer. But our Saviour 
was now directing his disciples concerning a 
baptism to be administered to such as they 
should actually proselyte to the true faith; and 
the language made use of proves, with sufficient 
clearness, that the thought in his mind must 
have been that of the Jewish proselyte baptism, 
which, as we have seen, was then universally 
practiced. This baptism was, of course, familiar 
to the minds of the disciples; and when they 
were commanded to disciple and to baptize, how 
could they understand the Saviour to mean any 
thing else than this baptism? 

In these circumstances, it is plain, that, in- 



BAPTISM OF PROSELYTES. 139 

stead of needing an express command to author- 
ize them to baptize the children of those who 
should be converted under their ministry, the 
disciples would have needed an express prohi- 
bition, to prevent their so doing, had it been the 
Saviour's design to restrict their baptism to 
adults. But no such prohibition was given, or 
even intimated. 

I am thus led to the conclusion, that our 
Saviour's command in the circumstances in 
which it was given, inculcates the doctrine of 
infant baptism. It must have been so under- 
stood by those to w r hom it was addressed. It 
must also have been intended by the Saviour to 
be so understood; and in view r of the prevalent 
usage of the time in which it was spoken, I can 
not understand it otherwise. 

But there are other considerations, yet to be 
stated, which show conclusively, that our Saviour 
and his apostles designed to teach the doctrine of 
Infant Baptism, and that baptism, as a standing 
ordinance, a sacrament of the Christian church, 
should be administered to the children of be- 
lievers, as well as to believers themselves. 



SECTION II. 

IN ALL THE COVENANTS OF GOD WITH MEN, CHILDREN 
ARE INCLUDED WITH THEIR PARENTS. 

Every believer, by making a public profession 
of religion, enters formally into covenant with 
God. By his conversion he has become a child 
of God, a willing subject of his government, and 
now by a public profession, he recognizes this 
relation of submission, dependence, love and 
obedience, and pledges himself to its duties and 
obligations. He is thus formally in covenant 
with God. 

Now, as to the meaning and purport of such 
a covenant, I have to remark, (and I wish this 
point to be well considered,) that in all the forms 
in which God ever invited or required men to 
enter into a covenant of obedience to himself, 
previous to the time of Christ and the Christian 
dispensation, children were included with their 
parents. It was so in God's covenant with 
Adam; and thus, " By one man sin entered into 
the world, and death by sin; and so death passed 



COVENANT RELATIONS. 141 

upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Rom. 
5: 12.) Whatever mystery may be involved in 
this transaction, nothing can be plainer than the 
fact, that, as children of Adam, we and all man- 
kind are even now experiencing the consequences 
of this covenant obligation of our common parent 
to God, whose law he disobeyed. And what- 
ever disputes may have arisen, as to the grounds 
and reasons of our sufferings in consequence of 
Adam's sin, the fact is one of experience, as 
well as of revelation. It is admitted by all, and 
all are involved in it, infants as w r ell as adults. 

The children of Noah were also embraced in 
the covenant, which God made with him. 
" Moved with fear, he prepared an ark to the 
saving of his house" (Heb. 11: 7.) "With 
thee," said God, " will I establish my covenant: 
and thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy 
sons, and thy wife, and thy son's wives with 
thee." (Gen. 6:18.) And God dealt favorably 
with the children of Lot, for their father's sake. 
(Gen. 19.) 

In the case of Abraham, this covenant rela- 
tion of children with their parents is still more 
explicitly declared. " And I will establish my 



142 INFANT BAPTISM. 

covenant between me and thee, and thy seed 
after thee, in their generations, for an everlasting 
covenant; to be a God unto thee, and to thy 
seed after thee." (Gen. 17: 7.) So the sign 
and seal of the covenant was required to be ad- 
ministered to his children, as well as to himself. 
And the children of every Jewish parent were to 
be xircumcised, as the condition of his own in- 
terest in the covenant. (Gen. 17: 12, 13.) 

But if God, in all his covenant dealings with 
men, for four thousand years before the coming 
of Christ, had invariably included children with 
their parents — if, in maintaining this principle^ 
he had even suffered the whole human race to 
be involved in ruin, in consequence of Adam's 
sin — then, is it not reasonable to conclude that 
there is something in the very nature of the re- 
lation of parents and children, which renders 
such covenant engagements, as God required in 
those early ages, proper and even necessary ? Is 
not the child so dependent on the parent for the 
influences which guide and mould his character, 
that they cannot be separated in their moral re- 
sponsibilities? Must not the parent be, in a 
great measure, responsible for the character o 



COVENANT RELATIONS. 143 

the child, especially during the periods of infancy 
and childhood? Was it likely then, nay, was 
it possible, that God, in the new form of his 
covenant w T ith believers, under the Christian dis- 
pensation, should have sundered the connexion 
between parents and their children? This, I 
think, is not for a moment to be admitted. But 
there are other conclusive proofs, that Christ, in 
the new dispensation of his grace, did not intend 
to interrupt or destroy this long acknowledged 
relation. 



SECTION III. 

THE CHURCH THE SAME UNDER THE JEWISH AND 
CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS. 

The covenant which God made with Abra- 
ham, including children with their parents, was 7 
as we have seen, " an everlasting covenant" It 
has never been abolished, and never can be. It 
is declared in passages already referred to, and 
in other places in the Old Testament, to have 
been with Abraham and his seed, " for an ever- 
lasting covenant," and is spoken of in the New T 
Testament as to exist " for ever. 55 (Luke 1 : 55.) 
Paul declares that " the law, which w T as four 
hundred and thirty years after, can not disannul 
[it] that it should make the promise of none 
effect, 55 and that, as a " covenant of promise, 55 it 
was "confirmed of God in Christ. 55 (Gal. 3: 
17.) And believers under the gospel are spoken 
of as children of this covenant with Abraham. 
They are also denominated " children of Abra- 
ham, 55 and " Abraham 5 s seed, and heirs accord- 
ing to the promise; (Gal. 3: 7, 29,) and Abra- 



THE CHURCH PERPETUAL. 145 

ham is called " the father of us all." (Rom. 4: 
16.) 

Now it is apparent from such declarations as 
these, that the covenant made with Abraham is 
God's covenant with the church in all ae;es. It 
was not abolished by the coming of Christ, but 
was confirmed in him, and remains essentially 
the same under the Jewish and Christian dispen- 
sations. But if the covenant of the church is 
the same, then it is essentially the same church 
under both dispensations. The church is consti- 
tuted by its covenant with God, and if its cove- 
nant remains unchanged, the church is the same. 
Hence the church, under both dispensations, is 
represented as the same in numerous passages ot 
scripture. 

The ancient predictions of the conversion 01 
the Gentiles, and of the prosperity and glory of 
the church under the gospel, do not indicate that 
a new church was then to be established in the 
earth. Such an idea does not seem to have en- 
tered the minds of the prophets. On the contra- 
ry, they uniformly represent that the Zion of the 
Old Testament, the church at that time existing 
in Israel, was to be enlarged and beautified with 
10 



146 INFANT BAPTISM. 

new light and glory by the coming of the Re- 
deemer. Their language and their imagery all 
indicate this. It was to the church of his own 
times, that Isaiah gave the following encourage- 
ment: "Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and 
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." " And 
the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings 
to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine 
eyes round about and see; all they gather them- 
selves together, they come to thee : thy sons shall 
come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed 
at thy side." (Isaiah 60: 1,3, 4, &c. See also 
Isaiah 49: 19-21.) And so of the prophecies 
of the Old Testament generally. They evidently 
contemplate, not a new church under the gospel, 
but new glory and blessings to the church or the 
house of Israel. 

The same idea is fully carried out in the New 
Testament. Christ and his apostles do not claim 
for the church under the gospel, an origin and 
constitution distinct from that of the former dis- 
pensation. On the contrary, they claim for it 
an identity with the church of the patriarchs and 
prophets. Christ declares that " Many shall 
come from the east and west, and shall sit down 



THE CHURCH PERPETUAL. 147 

with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the 
kingdom of heaven." And this he explains to 
be the same kingdom, from which " the children 
of the kingdom," the Jews, for their unfaithful- 
ness, should "be cast out." (Mat. 8: 11, 12.) 
And again he says, that " the kingdom of God 
shall be taken from [them] and given to a na- 
tion bringing forth the fruits thereof." (Mat. 
21: 43.) Still it is the same church, though 
enlarged and beautified. It is taken from the 
Jews, who had long abused its privileges, and is 
given to the Gentiles. 

In perfect accordance with these statements 
and predictions, Paul represents the Gentile be- 
lievers as graffed into the same olive-tree, from 
which the Jews, for their unbelief were broken 
off, and to which he says, " they also," that is 
the Jews, " if they abide not still in unbelief, 
shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them 
in again. 5 * What is this olive-tree, if it be not 
the true church in covenant w T ith God, w T hether 
composed of Jews or Gentiles? Therefore, 
" Boast not against the branches. But if thou 
boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root 
thee." (Rom. 11: 17, 18,23.) 



148 INFANT BAPTISM. 

Now, in view of these representations, nothing 
can be more certain, than that the visible church 
of God, under both dispensations, is substantially 
the same body. The religion of the Old Testa- 
ment, then, is not distinct from that of the New, 
as if it were another system. ' The one is but the 
filling up of the imperfect outline which was 
drawn in the other, and the true church, in all 
ages, is essentially the same. It has held essen- 
tially the same doctrines, enjoyed the same spir- 
itual promises, though w T ith different degrees of 
light, has been constituted upon the same cove- 
nant, and professed the same religion. 



SECTION IV. 

BAPTISM THE SUBSTITUTE FOR CIRCUMCISION. 

I am now prepared to show that — the cove- 
nant and the church remaining the same — the 
sign and seal of the covenant, though changed 
in its form, retains all its original significancy 
and propriety, in its application both to believers 
and their children. Under the ancient dispen- 
sation of the covenant, there was an instituted 
external observance, or rite, prerequisite to a 
regular standing in the visible church. That 
instituted rite was circumcision, which was ad- 
ministered to both believers and their children. 
Under the new dispensation of the same covenant, 
with the same church, circumcision has been 
discontinued and abolished. But there is another 
observance, instituted by our Saviour, more sim- 
ple and convenient and better suited, than the 
bloody rite of circumcision, to the free spirit and 
more " easy yoke" of the gospel. Yet it holds 
the same relation to the covenant. It is, as cir- 
cumcision was, prerequisite to a regular stand- 



150 INFANT BAPTISM. 

ing in the visible church. This new observance 
or rite, is baptism, which, as a matter of fact, 
and by our Saviour's command, occupies the 
same place, in respect to faith and profession, 
that circumcision occupied under the law. The 
one, therefore, in these respects, is a substitute 
for the other; and if that which is done away 
was applied to the children of believers, why 
should not that which has taken its place be so 
applied? 

The covenant is the same now as then, and 
the natural relation of children to their pa- 
rents, under the covenant, the same. No change 
has been produced in these respects by the gos- 
pel. Parents have the same authority now as 
formerly, the same power of influence, and the 
same obligation rests on them, and is rather en- 
forced than enfeebled, to bring up their children 
" in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 
(Eph. 6:4.) And children sustain the same re- 
lation of dependence now as formerly, and are ab 
susceptible of moulding influences from their 
parents. Why then should not the rite, prere- 
quisite to a regular standing in the church, be 
administered to the children of believers now, as 



CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM. 151 

well as under the former dispensation? Surely 
the fact that its" form has been changed and 
mitigated, can not justify us in withholding it, so 
long as its significancy and propriety remain the 
same. No one pretends that it has been forbid- 
den; and in the absence of all prohibition, I can 
imagine no reason why it should be discontinued 
in respect to children, while it is administered to 
adults. 

Circumcision was both a sign and a seal of 
the faith of those under the old dispensation, 
who entered into covenant w T ith God. Abraham, 
says Paul, (Rom. 4: 11,) " received the sign of 
circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the 
faith w T hich he had yet being uncircumcised, that 
he might be the father of all them that believe, 
though they be not circumcised." Here circum- 
cision was a sign. It represented the circum- 
cision of the heart, or regeneration. For " cir- 
cumcision," says Paul, again, (Rom. 2: 29,) 
" is of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the 
letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." 
It was also a seal. It confirmed " the righteous- 
ness of the faith which he had," or his accept- 
ance of the conditions of the covenant of grace, 



152 INFANT BAPTISM. 

as a sealed instrument confirms the engagements 
of a contract. 

So baptism is both a sign and a seal. As a 
sign, it represents the washing of regeneration, 
or the baptism of the Holy Ghost. As a seal, it 
is, on the part of those who receive it, a confirm- 
ation of their covenant engagements to God. 
while it assures them, that, if their hearts and 
lives are conformed to its sacred import, their 
faith, like that of Abraham, is imputed to them 
for righteousness. 

There are numerous other passages, which 
show that baptism, under the gospel, takes the 
place of circumcision under the law, and that its 
significancy is the same. " Beware of the con- 
cision," says Paul, (Phil. 3:2, 3,) that is, beware 
of those persons who lay great stress on the right 
of circumcision, " for we," that is, we who have 
been baptized, " are the circumcision, which 
worship God in the Spirit." Again, he says to 
the Colossians, (Col. 2: 11, 12,) " Ye are cir- 
cumcised with the circumcision made without 
hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the 
flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with 
him in baptism." The meaning is, in other 



CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM. 153 

words, that having been baptized, spiritually, 
* ye are" thereby " circumcised" spiritually, that 
is, with the " circumcision made without hands," 
&c. 

I have already remarked, (Part L, Sec. X.,) 
that both the circumcision and baptism here 
spoken of, are plainly spiritual, and that, there- 
fore, the expression " buried with him in bap- 
tism," can have no reference whatever to the 
mode of baptism. But if circumcision and bap- 
tism, in their spiritual import, are the same — as 
they are here seen to be — and the one was in- 
stituted in the church as a sealing ordinance, on 
the removal of the other, what is this but the 
substitution of the one for the other? But it is 
objected, that in numerous instances, from the 
beginning of John's ministry to the death of 
Christ, the same persons w T ere both circumcised 
and baptized, and that Paul circumcised Timo- 
thy, after he had been baptized. (Acts 16: 3.) 
It is asked, how can one of these ordinances be 
considered as substituted for the other, when 
both were» practised at the same time? 

I answer, that the covenant of grace was not 
perfected in Christ, until his own blood, " the 



154 INFANT BAPTISM. 

blood of the everlasting covenant/ 5 was shed, 
It was perfected in his own death; and so after 
his resurrection, he opened its full import to the 
apostles, and then, for the first time, commission- 
ed them to go and publish it to all nations. 
Baptism, therefore, could not have been made 
the sign and seal of the perfected covenant until 
now. Accordingly w T e find that it was just at 
this time, and not before, that our Lord formally 
instituted the sacrament of baptism. 

Before this, during the ministry of John and 
of Christ, the church was in a state of transition 
from the former to the new dispensation. It is 
not surprising, therefore, that there was some 
mingling of ordinances, and some approach in 
the form and import of the rites of the old dis- 
pensation to those of the new. But they were 
not yet the permanent institutions of the gospel. 
So the baptism of John was only preparatory to 
the rite of Christian baptism. It was adminis- 
tered on profession of repentance and faith in 
the speedy appearance of him, who was to bap- 
tize " with the Holy Ghost and with fire." And 
the baptisms performed by the disciples of Christ, 
while he was yet with them, were administered 



CIRCIMCISION AND BAPTISM 155 

to those Jews that believed on him, as the Mes- 
siah, all of whom, like the apostles themselves, 
waited for a fuller manifestation of his character 
and offices. Both John's baptism and that of 
the disciples, previous to the resurrection, looked 
for something yet to come, and were not that 
baptism, " in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, 5 ' which was insti- 
tuted by our Saviour, after his resurrection, as a 
standing sacrament in the Christian church. 
This, I think, sufficiently accounts for the con- 
tinuance of circumcision among the converted 
Jews, who were baptized during the Saviour's 
personal ministry. 

As to the circumcision of Timothy by Paul, 
it was evidently done to avoid the opposition 
and reproaches of the Jews. It was a mere 
measure of expediency to open the way for 
greater usefulness, in accordance with Paul's 
uniform and avowed principle of conduct. 
(1 Cor. 9: 20.) " And unto the Jews, I beca-me 
as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews." But in 
such cases, circumcision was not administered as 
a sealing ordinance, but only as a mark of na- 
tional distinction. Nor did it interfere with the 



156 INFANT BAPTISM. 

established institutions of the gospel. Otherwise 
Paul would have resisted it, as he did on another 
occasion, when certain Judaizing teachers un- 
dertook to impose circumcision on the Gentile 
converts, " To whom," he says, " we gave place 
by subjection, no not for an hour." (Gal. 2: 1- 
5. See Acts 15: 1, 28, 29; and 21:23-26.) 

It thus appears that when the ancient sign and 
seal of the covenant which God made with his 
people, for an everlasting covenant, was abo- 
lished, another ordinance was instituted in the 
same church, under the same covenant, of pre- 
cisely the same import, and for the same purpose, 
viz., as a sign and seal of the righteousness of 
faith. And we ask in vain for a reason why the 
latter should not be applied to the children of be- 
lievers, as the former certainly was. I say, we 
ask in vain, for it is in vain to say, as is often 
said, that, since infants have not faith/ it can not 
be proper to apply to them the sign and seal 
of faith. 

This objection lies with equal weight against 
infant circumcision. But we know that circum- 
cision was administered to infants eight days 
old, by the command of God. If the one is im- 



CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM. % 157 

proper, on this account, the other was, and God 
is in fault for having required it. Moreover, if 
faith is a prerequisite to baptism, it is also a pre- 
requisite to salvation. " He that believeth and 
is baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth 
not shall be damned. 55 (Mark 16: 16.) If then 
you deny baptism to infants, on the ground that 
they are incapable of exercising faith, you 
ought also, for the same reason, to deny .the pos- 
sibility of their salvation, for faith and salvation 
are as indissolubly linked together in the scrip- 
tures, as are faith and baptism. If you admit 
that children are saved, when they die in infancy, 
without the exercise of an intelligent faith, then 
surely their lack of faith can not consistently be 
urged to debar them from the privilege of bap- 
tism. And if you say, they have faith, which is 
known to God, though not manifested to us, and 
that this is the ground of their salvation, then 
they have the very thing that you claim as pre- 
requisite to their baptism, and your objection de- 
stroys itself. 

Again, it is sometimes asked, What good can 
baptism do to an unconscious infant? So it was 
asked, in respect to the Jews, " What profit is 



158 



INFANT BAPTISM. 



there of circumcision?' 5 Paul answered, " Much 
every way" and then added, " For what if some" 
— who had been circumcised — " did not believe? 
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God with- 
out effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, 
but every man a liar." (Rom. 3: 1-3.) And 
again he says, " Circumcision verily profiteth, if 
thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of 
the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumci- 
sion." (Rom. 2: 25.) 

So the advantages of infant baptism are many 
and great. It is a sign of interesting truths, and 
a seal of inestimable blessings. Christ will 
honor his own institution; and when he suffers 
little children thus to be brought unto him, it is, 
that he may bless them. Their right of mem- 
bership in the visible church is thus recognized 
and ratified, and they are introduced to the spe- 
cial care and instruction of the church. And 
though we can not define all the blessings which 
the Saviour bestows, in answer to the prayers of 
his people, upon children, thus in covenant with 
himself, who can estimate their value? All ob- 
jections of this sort are equally futile. They 



CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM. 159 

savor of being wise above what is written, and 
lead to endless difficulties and absurdities. 

I may add, that it is perilous thus to reject an 
ordinance of God, and throw off its authority 
from ourselves, merely because, from the mode 
of our education, or our habits of thinking on 
these subjects, we do not at once see the grounds 
of its propriety. It is enough, if God has re- 
quired it, though the reasons may not all be 
apparent to us. And surely, so far as the prin- 
ciple of this ordinance is concerned, if God has 
honored it in any case, as he certainly did in the 
case of infant circumcision, w T e should beware 
that we do not treat it lightly, nor reject it with- 
out a Divine warrant to do so. But no such 
warrant is to be found. On the contrary, the 
New Testament is full of proof that the sign and 
seal of Abraham's faith, though changed in its 
form, still retains its significancy, and is to be 
administered to us and to our children, so long 
as we " walk in the steps of the faith of our fa- 
ther Abraham, w T hich he had being yet uncir- 
cumcised." (Rom. 4: 12.) 

Yet there is a large class of professing Chris- 
tians, in modern times, who reject the doctrine 



160 INFANT BAPTISM. 

of infant baptism, and whose conscientious scru- 
ples we are bound to respect. They ask for 
what can not be given, a text of scripture ex- 
pressly enjoining the baptism of children. Our 
reply is, that this demand is unreasonable. The 
doctrine in question is so well sustained by such 
considerations as I have now stated, that an ex- 
press command is unnecessary. 

Moreover, if no obligation can be imposed, 
without an express command, why do those 
who raise this objection attend public worship, 
from sabbath to sabbath, as a thing of religious 
obligation? Why do they observe the first 
instead of the seventh day of the w T eek as the 
sabbath? Why do they administer the Lord's 
supper to females? Why do they pray with 
their children and families, or teach them to 
read? There is not in all the scriptures a 
text expressly enjoining these duties. Yet 
who doubts that they are duties? Who that 
embraces the Bible, as the rule of his faith, does 
not joyfully yield himself to the practice of these 
duties, as matters of Divine requirement, and of 
religious obligation? So the dedication of our 
children to God in baptism may be a duty, 



CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM. 161 

though no single text can be found, which, in 
so many words, commands it. That it is a 
duty, there are still other proofs yet to be con- 
sidered. 

11 



SECTION V. 

THE EXAMPLE AND PRACTICE OF THE APOSTLES IN 
RESPECT TO INFANT BAPTISM. 

In addition to the strong proof of the identity 
of the church under both dispensations, the per- 
petuity of the covenant, and the fact that bap- 
tism takes the place of circumcision, we have 
still further corroborative evidence in favor of 
our belief, from apostolic example and practice. 

Christ and his apostles taught and practiced 
much as we might expect, on the supposition 
that they intended to authorize the baptism of 
children, as well as adult believers, and just as 
we should not expect, on the contrary supposi- 
tion. They were themselves of the Jewish 
church, by birth and education. They knew 
that, in that church, children were connected 
with their parents in their covenant relations to 
God; that they early received the sign of the 
everlasting covenant; and that, in the case of 
proselytes, the children were baptized with their 
parents. And most of those to whom they min- 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 163 

istered in the beginning of the gospel, were 
also familiar with these Jewish usages. 

What, then, might have been expected of 
Christ and his apostles, on the supposition that 
they intended to put an end to this practice of 
infant baptism? Not silence, in respect to it, 
surely! On the contrary, they would have lost 
no opportunity of insisting, that the ancient 
covenant relation of children and parents was 
now abolished, and ought no longer to be re- 
cognized in the rites and sacraments of the 
church. But they neither said nor intimated 
any such thing in a single instance. 

But what would be expected of Christ and 
his apostles, on the supposition that they intend- 
ed to recognize the established covenant rela- 
tion of parents and children, in the church, as 
perpetual? What would they be likely to say 
about the seal of the covenant? Surely it would 
not be necessary to enjoin it in the case of the 
children of proselytes; for this would be to en- 
join expressly what was universally practiced in 
such cases. But they would be likely often to 
allude to the covenant relation of parents and 
children to God, as a thing known and recog 



164 INFANT BAPTISM. 

nized, and to speak of its duties and drop ex- 
pressions which implied them. They would be 
likely also often to baptize households, when 
those at the head of them made profession of 
their faith, and occasionally to speak of these 
occurrences in a cursory manner, indicating no 
doubt that the nature and form of these transac- 
tions would be generally understood on their 
bare announcement of them, without explana- 
tion. And this w 7 e find is just the course which 
they did pursue. 

The Saviour applauded the practice of bring- 
ing infants to receive his blessing, and said, 
" Forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
God." (Mark 10: 14.) Again, he speaks of 
little children as being received in his name, or 
as belonging to him. (Mark 9: 37, 42.) Peter 
taught believing parents that the promise w T as to 
them and their children. (Acts 2: 39.) Paul 
affirms that " the blessing of Abraham has come 
on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ." (Gal. 3: 
14.) On another occasion he denominates the 
children of believing parents " holy;' 5 that is, 
consecrated, (1 Cor. 7: 14.) The whole ex- 
pression of the apostle is as follows, ( 1 Cor. 7 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 165 

14): " For the unbelieving husband is sanctified 
by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sancti- 
fied by the husband; else w T ere your children un- 
clean; but now are they holy;" that is, holy in 
an ecclesiastical sense; in other words, they are 
entitled to baptism, as the children of believers, 
dedicated or consecrated to God. 

This passage indicates two things; first, that 
no children but those of believers are entitled tc 
baptism. This was the case in respect to cir- 
cumcision under the law. It w T as administered 
only to the children or wards of those who pro- 
fessed the true religion. All others were ex- 
cluded as unclean. So Christian baptism is to be 
administered to none but the children of profes- 
sors of the true faith. But we are here taught, 
secondly, that, if either of the parents is a be- 
liever and a professor of religion, their children 
are entitled to baptism, on account of the faith 
and profession of the believing parent, though 
the other remain yet an unbeliever. " Now 7 /' 
says the apostle, their children " are holy. 55 In 
accordance with this, Peter declares (Acts 2 : 39,) 
that the promise is to " as many' 5 [and their 
children,] " as the Lord our God shall call. 5 ' 



166 INFANT BAPTISE 

Now obedience to this call of Gou implies « pro- 
fession of faith; hence baptism belongs only to 
those who profess the religion of the gospel, and 
their children, or such as are under their care 
and influence by guardianship or adoption. 

Paul also repeatedly baptized households, or 
families, on the profession of the faith of theii 
parents, or of those who had charge of them. 
Lydia gave heed to the gospel, and she and her 
household* w r ere baptized. (Acts 16: 15.) The 
jailer believed, and he and all his were baptized 
straightway. (Acts 16: 33.) Paul also baptized 
the household of Stephanus. (1 Cor. 1: 16.) 

Another consideration, which has an impor- 
tant bearing on the force of this argument is, 
that a great number of Jewish parents were con- 
verted under the ministry of Christ and his 

* The editor of Calmet's Dictionary gives no less 
than fifty examples in proof of the fact, that o/xo£, 
(oikos,) here rendered household, when used in appli- 
cation to persons, denotes a family of children in- 
cluding children of all ages, and assures us, that as 
many as three hundred instances have been examined, 
and have proved perfectly satisfactory. See Cal, p. 
155, and Kurtz, p. 94. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 167 

apostles. These were all " zealous of the law ;" 
and yet we never hear of their complaining that 
their children were deprived of their interest in 
the covenant, by the institutions and usages of 
the gospel, or that they failed to receive the seal 
of that covenant. Could this have been the 
case, if baptism had not been administered in 
the place of circumcision, to the children of those 
converts? Yet not a word of complaint is heard 
from them on any such account. It is morally 
certain, therefore, that in respect to covenant re- 
lations and privileges, according to a well-known 
prophecy of Jeremiah, " their children were as 
aforetime." (Jer. 30: 20.) 



SECTION VI. 

TESTIMONY OF EARLY CHRISTIANS AND OF HISTORY* 
ORIGIN OF THE BAPTIST DENOMINATION. CON- 
CLUDING REMARKS. 

The earliest of the Christian fathers, also, after 

the apostolic age, considered baptism as standing 

in the place of circumcision. Several of them 

have spoken expressly on the subject, making it 

certain that infant baptism was practiced in their 

times, and was claimed to be of apostolic origin 
and authority. 

The old Syriac version of the New Testament, 
the date of which is assigned, by Walton and 
others, to the first centaury of the Christian era, 
substitutes the word children for omog, " house* 
hold 55 and " all his, 53 in the passages already 
referred to; and so, in that very early version, 
the reading is, "Lydiaand her children" the 
jailer " and his children" &c. This is at once 
a correct translation of the original, and a valu- 
able testimony, as to the understanding of theS£ 
passages in the very region where the apostle 



EARLY HISTORY. 169 

labored; and being given while some of them 
were yet alive, it ought to be conclusive on this 
subject. 

So also Ireneus, who was born about the close 
of the first century, says, " Infants and little ones, 
and children, and youth, and the aged, are regen- 
erated to God" — renascuntur in Deum, It is 
plain that this expression refers to baptism, for 
he afterwards quotes Matt. 28 : 19, and says, in 
relation to it, " Our Lord gave to his disciples 
this commission of regenerating;" that is, of 
baptizing. 

Justin Martyr, also, who lived in the first half 
century after the death of the apostle John, says 
that " Infants are washed with water in the name 
of the Father and Son and Spirit." And Origen, 
who lived w T ithin a hundred years of the apos- 
tolic age, a man of great learning and exten- 
sive acquaintance with the churches of his time, 
says, " Little children are baptized agreeably to 
the usage of the church; w T ho received it from 
the apostles, that this ordinance should be ad- 
ministered to infants." The testimony of others 
is equally explicit. 

But if this is so, and it was understood in the 



170 INFANT BAPTISM. 

times nearest the apostles, that baptism stood in 
the place of circumcision, and was to be admin- 
istered to infants, by apostolic authority, then the 
question about baptizing the children of believ- 
ers ought to be at an end. 

There is, indeed, no evidence that the right of 
the children of believers to receive baptism was 
ever denied in the earlier ages of the church. 
Tertullian, it is true, adopted the strange notion 
that baptism was accompanied with the remis- 
sion of all past sins; and that sins committed 
after baptism were peculiarly dangerous. He 
therefore advised that the baptism of infants who 
were likely to live, should be delayed, that it 
might be administered at a later period of life, 
and thus cancel a greater multitude of sins. 
Yet he recognizes the existence and prevalence 
of infant baptism in his time, (the third century,) 
and recommends it in all cases where the infant 
is not likely to survive. 

Others of the Christian fathers often allude to 
this subject and give abundant testimony to the 
universality of the practice, and the prevalent 
belief that it w^as handed down from the apos- 
tles. Augustine and Pelagius, in the fourth 






EARLY HISTORY. 171 

century, both learned men, in their long and 
violent disputes about original sin, affirm and 
defend their belief of the doctrine of infant bap- 
tism. Pelagius says, " Men slander me, as if I 
denied the sacrament of baptism to infants." 
And again, " I never heard of any, not even the 
most impious heretic, who denied baptism to in- 
fants"* And Augustine repeatedly recognizes 
the same, and urges it upon his opponent, as a 
reason why he should also admit original sin, 
and the necessity of the regeneration of infants, 
which it is the design of baptism to signify and 
represent. 

Our best historians, as Milner and Wall, who 
have investigated this subject thoroughly, assure 
us that they can find no account of any body of 
professing Christians, who denied baptism to in- 
fants, until about the beginning of the Protestant 
Reformation in the thirteenth century. Then 
there arose a small sect among the Waldenses, 
who maintained that infants ought not to be bap- 
tized, because they considered them incapable 
of salvation. The great mass of the Waldenses 
still held the doctrine of infant baptism and 

# Wall's Hist, of Infant Bap., Vol. 1. 



172 INFANT BAPTISM. 

practiced it. But this small sect, the followers 
of Peter de Bruis, broke off from the main body 
of that renowned church, and held that, as in- 
fants were incapable of salvation, the applying 
to them of the sacramental seal is an absurdity. 
Surely our Baptist brethren, knowing their creed, 
will not wish these people to be considered their 
predecessors. 

Where then shall we look, in history, for the 
modern Baptist doctrines on this subject? It is 
incontestibly proved that baptism was adminis- 
tered to the children of believers during the 
apostolic age, and that it continued to be ad- 
ministered, in all subsequent ages, by the great 
body of the church, for more than fifteen hundred 
years. For the Petrobrusians* were a very 
small sect, and, as we have seen, they did not 
reject infant baptism on the grounds now urged 

* These Petrolrusians, says Dr. Miller, " were a very 
small fraction of the great Waldensian body, probably 
not more than a thirtieth or fortieth part of the whole. 
The great mass of the denomination, as such, declare, 
in their Confession of Faith, and in various public 
documents, that they held, and that their fathers be- 
fore them, for many generations, always held, to in- 
fant baptism." — Miller on Baptism. 



ANABAPTIST. . 173 

by our Baptist brethren ; and the very first body 
of people, in the whole Christian world, who did 
reject it on these grounds were a fanatical sect, 
called Anabaptists* who arose in Germany in 
1522.f Here, properly speaking, commenced 
the Baptist denomination. Here the communion 
of the church was first sundered on the ground 
of baptism. The Anabaptists produced the sepa- 
ration, which has since been maintained and 
extended, as if it were a doctrine of godliness. 
They have since been called Antipedobaptists, in 
distinction from all other denominations of Chris- 
tians, who are called Pedobaptists, because they 
baptize children. 

All the boasting, therefore, of our Baptist 
brethren, about tracing the origin of their deno- 
mination to John the Baptist, and to the day of 

# The word Anabaptist is derived from ava, [anew) 
and fiarfrufrrig, (Baptist,) and was applied to the sect 
referred to, because they held, as the close-communion 
Baptists now hold, that persons baptized in infancy 
ought to be baptized anew, on their becoming believers. 

f It does not appear that there was any congrega- 
tion of Anabaptists in England, until about 1640. See 
Tomlirts Elements, and Kurtz on Baptism, 



174 • INFANT BAPTISM. 

Pentecost, is mere declamation. Neither scrip- 
ture nor history furnishes the slightest evidence in 
support of such a claim. The fact is susceptible 
of the clearest proof, that they are a modern sect 
This, however, would be no objection, and no 
ground of reproach, if their positions were true, 
and supported by the word of God. " To the 
law and to the testimony: if they speak not ac- 
cording to this word, it is because there is no 
light in them." (Isa. 8: 20.) 

I would not urge, therefore, with too much 
confidence, the authority of history and of uni- 
versal practice in the church, since the age of 
the apostles. I admit that, in all the ages since 
the Saviour's own time, there have been errors 
mingled with truth, in the church, almost every 
where. And in respect to matters of mere hu- 
man authority and usage, the Baptists have as 
good a right to their opinions, as we have to 
ours. But I think, the evidence of both scrip- 
ture and history, which we have now considered, 
of the departure of the close-communion Baptists 
from the faith and practice of the apostles on this 
subject, warns both them and us to " see and ask 
for the old paths, where is the good way, and 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 175 

walk therein, that we may find rest to our souls" 
— rest in the everlasting covenant of God with 
his people. 

By the terms of that covenant, every believing 
parent is bound to dedicate his children to God 
in baptism, as the sign and seal of his faith. 
And it is at our peril and the peril of our chil- 
dren, that we neglect it. The promise is only 
to " them that love him and keep his command- 
ments." This is one of his commandments; and 
surely the blessing of Abraham may be expected 
to come upon us, in all the fulness of the gospel, 
if we walk in the steps of his faith, " who is the 
father of us all," and let there be " no schism in 
the body." "For by one Spirit, are we all 
baptized into one body." (1 Cor. 12: 13, 25.) 
This is spiritual baptism, of which every one, who 
is truly regenerated, is a partaker. If, there- 
fore, w ? e accompany our external baptism, with 
pledges, which bind us to division and separation 
from the great mass of our brethren of the like 
precious faith, and that too on questions of mere 
" doubtful disputation," as the Baptist arguments 
on the mode and subjects of baptism certainly 
are, instead of binding ourselves, in the recep- 



176 INFANT BAPTISM. 

tion of this ordinance, to union and communion 
with all the faithful in Christ Jesus, we give to 
our baptism a meaning, which it has not in the 
scriptures. It is there intended to represent that 
spiritual influence, by which " we are all bap- 
tized into one body," " the body of Christ," the 
church universal. (1 Cor. 12: 27.) For " there 
is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are 
called in one hope of your calling ; One Lord, 
one faith, one baptism, [spiritual,] one God and 
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, 
and in you all." (Eph. 4: 4, 5, 6.) 

Let the reader understand, that the " one bap- 
tism," here spoken of, is spiritual. It is that by 
which, if he is truly regenerated, he is " baptized 
into one body" with all others who are regene- 
rated; and God has not only given him no right, 
but expressly forbids him, to affix to the exter- 
nal sign and seal of his spiritual baptism, volun- 
tary pledges to a single branch of " the body of 
Christ," which bind him to abstain from com- 
munion with all the other branches or members. 
If he makes a worthy profession of religion, he 
professes to be a member " in particular" of the 
whole body of Christ, and is not at liberty, by 



CONCLUDING REMARKS. 177 

the conditions of his baptism, either as to the 
mode or the time of its administration, to say to 
any of the other members, " I have no need of 
you." But he is bound to receive them as 
brethren, in all acts of communion and fellow- 
ship. " And whoso shall receive one such little 
child in my name," says the Saviour, "receiveth 
me/' (Matt. 18: 5.) 
12 



APPENDIX; 

CONCERNING THE MODE OF BAPTISM. 



The following is from the learned work more than 
once referred to in the preceding treatise, entitled, 
u Apostolic Baptism : Facts and Evidences on the Subjects 
md Mode of Christian Baptism ; by C Taylor, Editor 
of Calmetfs Dictionary of the Bible" 

Before we can discuss a theological subject, we 
must clear away those perversions in which industrious 
ignorance and criminal presumption involve it. The 
principal of these on the present topic is the following 
proposition — " Chistian Baptism is neither more nor 
less than an immersion of the whole body in water, 
solemnly performed in the name of the Father, the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

I answer — the bad Latin term, Immersion, is a very 
convenient cover for a very delusive proposition-; 
especially when used in an unlimited, unfixed, or un- 
qualified sense. * # * # 

A man is immersed who stands on his toes or up to 
his knees in water ; he also is immersed, Baptists say, 
over whose head the water flows. If the term then 
be so indeterminate, it were chasing an ignis fatuus to 
follow it, when facts are in question; it eludes the 
test of Scripture, reason, and common sense. 

Instead therefore, of bewildering ourselves in at- 
tempting to trace the strict use of a word notoriously 
uncertain in its application and import, let us examine 



180 APPENDIX. 

the thing it should represent. Instead of poring over 
bad Latin, let us endeavor to apply good English. 
Translate the term into our mother tongue. To put 
under water the whole body, is to plunge it. — Now 
mark the proposition :— " Christian Baptism is neither 
rnoi e nor less than plunging the whole body, in the 
name, &c." This affords a precise idea, that may 
easily be examined. Does the original Greek word 
baptize, wherever it occurs in Scripture, denote plung- 
ing ? — Let us try this by applying the term to the lead- 
ing passages. 

BarfTu. — In the New Testament the verb bapto oc- 
curs thrice : — 

Luke xvi. 24. — Send Lazarus that he may dip tke 
tip of his finger; — that he may plunge the tip of his 
finger. 

John xiii. 20. — He to whom I shall give a sop when 
1 have dipped it ; — a sop when I have plunged it. 

Rev. xix. 13. — His name is called the Word of 
God : — he was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood ;-— 
clothed in a vesture plunged in blood. 

Efju/SatfT&j. — The compound verb embapto is used 
three times: — 

Matthew xxvi. 23. — He that dippeth his hand with 
me in the dish ; — he that plungeth his hand with me 
in the dish 

Mark xiv. 20. — One of the twelve that dippeth with 
me in the dish; — one of the' twelve that plungeth 
with me in the dish. 

John xiii. 26. — He it is to whom I shall give a sop, 
when I have dipped it ; and when he had dipped the 
sop ; — he it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have 
plunged it ; and when he had plunged the sop. 

Now, does language tolerate the expression "to 
plunge the tip of a finger ?" does Christianity tolerate 
the notion of our Lord Jesus "wearing a garment 
plunged in blood ?" does common decency tolerate the 
plunging of two hands in the same dish at the same 
time? 



MODE OF BAPTISM. 18 1 

Ba<7r<no'|Uio£. — The noun baptismos occurs four times : 

Mark vii. 4, 8. The ivashing of cups and pots, and 
of brazen vessels, and tables; — the plunging of cups 
and pots, and of brazen vessels, and tables. 

Heb. vi. 2. — The foundation of the doctrine of bap- 
tisms ; — doctrine of plunging s. 

Heb. ix. 10. — Services, in meats and drinks, and 
divers washings; — divers plungings. 

These passages imply very different modes of per- 
forming that action which the sacred writer calls bap- 
tism; and their order is favorable to the eliciting of 
conclusive evidence from their connection and tenor. 

Whoever has seen cups and pots washed at a pump, 
may judge whether they were necessarily plunged. 
Whoever considers what cumbersome pieces of furni- 
ture these tables were— -fifteen or twenty feet long, by 
four feet broad, and about four feet high — may judge 
whether they were plunged, after every meal taken 
upon them. Why does the sacred writer describe 
the doctrine of baptisms, in the plural, as one of the 
foundations of Christianity, if there were only one 
mode of baptism, that by plunging ? The same writer 
says expressly, that under the law there were divers 
kinds of baptisms: — and from the law itself, we know 
that by far the greater part of them were not plungings : 
the word therefore cannot possibly be restricted to 
that import. 

If then the word baptism be not restricted in Scripture 
to that import, but is used in senses distinct from that 
of plunging, in reference to things, let us examine its 
import in reference to persons. What think you of the 
baptism by the Holy Ghost ? This was not a meta- 
phorical or figurative baptism. It was a real and in 
disputable subject of the senses seen by John the Bap- 
tist, by the Apostles, in company of the hundred and 
twenty, as is generally thought, and by Peter with his 
brethren, in the instance of Cornelius ; and not less 
conspicuous than at the Jordan. It was the subject 
of John Baptist's repeated prediction : Mat. iii. 11 ; 



182 APPENDIX. 

Mark i. 8 ; Luke iii. 16 : " He shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost." It was also the subject of our Lord'? 
repeated predictiou ; Luke xxiv. 49 : "I send the pro 
mise of my Father upon you — ye shall be endued 
with power from on high." Acts i. 5 : " Ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.' 
— Acts ii. 2 : " And suddenly there came froyn heaven 
and appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire 
and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost" The same occured in the case 
of Cornelius : Acts x. 44 ; for Peter says, " the Holy 
Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning" Act? 
xi. xv : 8 : " God,...gave them the Holy Ghost, even as 
he did unto us, and put no difference between them 
and us, purifying their hearts by faith." 

Two words are emplo} r ed to express .this similitude ; 
one of which, woVsp, denotes a strict and exact simili- 
tude, likeness, or conformity. 

The manner in which this baptism was conferred or 
administered was not only distinct from plunging, but 
it was absolutely inconsistent with that action — 
Plunging was an impossibility in the administration 
of this baptism. 

It is proper to adduce those synonymous words which 
the sacred Spirit has graciously thought fit to employ, 
for the purpose of fixing the sense of that word which 
is the immediate subject of investigation. We waive 
all reference to critics and commentators, however 
numerous, and however positive. We depend on the 
New Testament alone — on those writers, under the 
immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who were 
nis instruments in explaining spiritual things by spirit- 
ual words. 

This test is a sort of experimentum crucis to false pro- 
positions. It has detected many. Let us try it in the 
case before us. 
Luke xxiv. 49. — Shall send the Holy Ghost — from 

ON HIGH. 



MODE OF BAPTISM. 183 

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a 
-dove, and it abode upon him; John L 32. 

This is what was spoken — I will pour out of my 
Spirit ; Acts ii. 2. 

Jesus having received of the Father the promise of 
the Holy Ghost, has shed forth this which ye now r 
see and hear; Acts ii. 35. 

Suddenly there came from heaven, and appeared 
unto them cloven tongues ; Acts ii. 2, 17. 

That they might receive the Holy Ghost ; for as yet 
he was fallen upon none of them; Acts viii. 16. 

Ananias put his hands on Paul, that he might be 
fdled with the Holy Ghost ; Acts ix. 17. 

God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy 
Ghost ; Acts x. 38. 

Acts x. 44. — The Holy Ghost fell on all. 

Acts xi. 15. — The Holy Ghost fell on them, even 
as on us at the beginning. 

Acts x. 45. — They of the circumcision were aston- 
ished, because on the Gentiles w r as poured out the 
Holy Ghost 

Acts xv. 8. — Giving them the Holy Ghost, even as 
unto us. 

Titus iii. 6. — The Holy Ghost: which he shed on 
us abundantly. 

1 Peter i. 12.— The Holy Ghost sent down from 
heaven. 

Eph. i. 13. — Sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. 

These passages give us as synonymous with baptize : 

Sending down; Coming; Giving; Falling; Shed- 
ding ; Pouring ; Sitting or Abiding ; Anointing ; Fill- 
ing; and Sealing. 

In all these synonymous words, there is not one that 
raises the idea of plunging, or even approaches to it. 
Yet they all refer to baptism. " The Apostles shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost," is the prediction ; the 
Holy Ghost was poured out upon them, is the ac- 
complishment. Even Paul who was then absent 
speaks of the Holy Ghost as being shed on him 



184 APPENDIX. 

doubtless at his baptism ; Acts ix. 17. Perhaps, how- 
ever the instance of our Lord is the most complete^ 
ofbaptismby the Holy Ghost; and in that we have the 
very height of certainty, there was no plunging, nor 
any thing like it: although almost all the synonyms 
meet in his person ;— as descending, coming, filling, 

ANOINTING, SITTING 01' ABIDING and SEALING. 

We are now advanced to the question, " Did baptism 
by water resemble baptism by the Holy Ghost?— and 
in what?" That there must have been some resem- 
blance is certain ; and the resemblance must have been 
striking : for the Apostle Peter, seemg the Holy Ghost 
poured out on the company at Cornelius's, immedi- 
ately recollected an allusion to John's baptism by 
water. The Lord said, " John baptized with water ; 
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.'' If there 
were no resemblance between the two baptisms, how 
oame the Apostle's memory to be refreshed with what 
he saw? How came he to lay a stress on his recol- 
lection, thus raised to exercise ? This made so stong 
an impression on his mind, that he adverts to it a long^ 
while afterwards. Act xv. 8. If it be asked what he 
did see? I answer, he saw the pouring down ot the- 
Holy Ghost; for this is the term expressly used in the 

' W Try both these irreconcilable propositions by the 
substitution of their synonyms. " John *Wum 
water; but ve shall be plunged in the Holy Ghost. 
Shocking abuse of language, and principle ! 1 ry the 
other* "The Holv Ghost shall be poured upon you, 
shed upon you, fall upon you, &c; as John pours 
watersheds water, lets fall water &c, upon you. 
What is there offensive in this? What is mere con- 
trary to fact? What to decency? What to the ana- 
logy of faith ? What to the analogy of grammar and 
language? Even that seemingly inappropriate term, 
anointing, preserves the action though it changes the 
fluid. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 665 045 4 



